Static
by HalcyonSeasons
Summary: To anyone on the outside, this is what happens when modern controversies and age-old social issues exploit the youth of La Push. To them, this is just life in the badlands, where anything can happen. In a chronicle of transformative events, Leah, Bella, Paul, and others must consider one important question: what will they lose if they change? AH Quileutes.
1. I

_**Static**_

 **Part One**

 **onism** : the frustration of being stuck in just one body that inhabits only one place at a time.

* * *

 **I.**

 _we all look for heaven and we put our love first_

* * *

With a backpack full of pencils he couldn't expect to still have on the last day of school, knockoff Chuck Taylors that he still needed to break in, a haircut he hated, and a slight stomachache, Jacob Black entered the main doors of Forks High School. He inhaled, taking in the new atmosphere that would soon belong to him, or he at least hoped it would. _High school._ He could smell the parties and overbearing stress already. The scent of memories, memories, and more memories—even as he wasn't a memory-savoring kind of guy—also wafted through the air, along with hints of sweat, perfume, and fresh pairs of jeans. This was it.

"Ayo, Jake!"

He turned around to see Quil Ateara and Embry Call. He knew he was missing something. He waited up for them, and the three of them walked the halls like always with Quil on the left, Embry on the right, and Jake in the middle.

The Quileute reservation didn't have a high school, so the ninth-through-twelfth grade students of the reservation had to go into the small yet efficient one in Forks, where all the self-proclaimed civilized kids went. That worked for Jacob, though; just about everything did. Jacob was a rider. He would love to call himself a comeback kid, but he'd never really fallen; he'd never had to make a comeback. Nothing had ever really pushed him down.

At least, before his mother died, his father was put in a wheelchair, and his sisters left him.

But that was a different thing.

This was new. This was even kind of exciting.

Forks High wasn't a big school in the least bit; he found his first class, Algebra, easily enough, and he felt smug about it. It was funny watching kids who'd lived here in Forks their entire lives get to class five minutes late. Hell, he'd even skipped the orientation and gotten it right. He was a rider, and that worked for him. It always had.

Before first period started, he took out his binder, along with the most recent postcard from Hawaii that his sister Rebecca had sent him. He'd waited for the card for a week, and it had finally arrived last night, and he hadn't gotten a chance to read it yet. _Might as well start now_ , he decided.

Rebecca droned on and on in her tiny handwriting about Hawaii, as if it was any more interesting now than it had been when she'd initially departed. Becca had met a guy in Long Beach just last spring, and they had ended up moving to and eloping in Hawaii before Jacob could even say goodbye. Solomon was her husband's name, and Jake had only met him once or twice before he'd whisked his sister away. Solomon was a Samoan surfer, and Jacob had never known that Becca was into surfing. She probably wasn't, but she'd been longing to finally get the hell out of La Push. He couldn't blame her, but he couldn't be happy about it, either. After all, she just _left._ He knew their mother died and kind of messed everything up with that, but Becca didn't have to leave as soon as she could. And he knew their dad was screwed up from diabetes and ended up in a wheelchair, but how was that fair to him? To them? Had Rebecca been _embarrassed_ of having a useless family? Jacob thought so.

Only after Rebecca just fled La Push, his other sister, Rachel, had run off to college. She was a freshman at the University of Washington ( _go Dawgs!_ ), and she'd barely given a warning that she was leaving. Jacob guessed he couldn't be mad at her for that, then. It was for school, and wanting an education wasn't as bad as meeting a Samoan surfer and running off. That was silly. No, screw that— _love_ was silly. Who needed love, anyway? Not Jacob, for sure.

He squinted his eyes down at the postcard as he tried to read Rebecca's tiny handwriting. _I'm so proud of you,_ it read. _It feels like you were just a little kid, and now you're going to high school! That's so great. I've been waiting for this day for such a long time._

 _Well, that's bullshit,_ Jacob thought. If Rebecca had been waiting for this day, she would be in town, just having driven him to school. But no—she was probably lying on the beach with her surfer husband, a flower in her hair, wearing a grass skirt, or sipping from a coconut or something. That sounded like her.

Jacob continued to read, and all in all, it was just bullshit. Loads of it. It was everything he expected, but nothing more. Don't get him wrong, though; he _loved_ receiving a postcard from Rebecca every month. It was just a little obvious now. Typical. Jacob wasn't opposed to the typical since his life in itself was very typical, but maybe he wanted to be.

"Whatcha reading?" a voice asked him. He looked to where the voice had come from, his left, and saw Leah Clearwater settling into the chair at the desk next to him. She ran a hand through her black, wavy, waist-length hair and leaned in to look closer.

 _Speaking of the typical…_

Jacob flipped the postcard to the other side, revealing the tropical illustration of Waikiki Beach and the word _Aloha_ floating in the sky. "Just a little letter," he replied.

Leah sighed. "Rebecca Writes Again," she said in understanding, as if she was in the same situation. Jacob nodded and turned the card over again, his eyes leaving Leah's.

Leah bit her lip—a dumb habit she was absolutely determined to quit—and just shook her head. Maybe it wasn't as if she was in the same situation as Jacob, and that was because she wasn't a fool. Every month since Rebecca had left, which wasn't a lot of months, either, Leah had been there when Jake had excitedly received the postcards. Leah knew exactly how his reactions had deteriorated from enthusiastic to annoyed. She even knew exactly how he had the postcards positioned in his room, and where. He'd shown her three times. Leah hadn't always been there for Jacob, but when she was, she always remembered. She was the type of girl who remembered the miniscule things, but not the seemingly important ones. That was another habit she wanted to quit, and when she was determined, she _always_ succeeded.

Somebody—a white girl she didn't know—spoke loudly next to her, but not at her, about what she'd heard about the girls' basketball team, which reminded Leah. She would go to the gym with Kim Conweller after school today to work on her three-pointers. (Leah had preparation to get to before the school basketball season, and her select team would have a tournament next weekend.) Her friend Kim was a fitness freak, always pushing Leah to do better. She was like a personal trainer and best friend all in one, and Leah loved that. Leah reached into her own backpack as the classroom slowly but thoroughly filled with freshmen, and once she got her planner out, she looked to the doorway to see Paul Lahote.

If there was anybody she fully understood, it definitely wasn't Jacob Black, but it was Paul Lahote, and he wasn't equipped for the first day of high school with more than a used-but-still-kinda-new backpack and a fresh bruise under his right eye. It was worse than the usual, too—she could see right now that it would stay purple for weeks.

Leah's mouth fell open, and she couldn't help but feel sorry for him—she always did. Paul was the one person she ever felt sorry for, even as a kid, and she could admit that. She could also admit that she would kick his father's ass in a heartbeat. Arnold Lahote couldn't spare his son just for today. A scowl also decorated Paul's face as he took a seat in the back corner of the classroom, near the cabinets.

If anybody was truly a comeback kid, it was Paul. He had been kicked down countless times and come back over and over and over again. He and Leah once had plans for him. They'd decided too loosely and not seriously but definitely repeatedly that Paul would leave his abusive household. Mr. Lahote had beat him "for the last time" when Paul and Leah had gotten the idea for him to leave, back in the sixth grade. It was far from the last time, though, and it was really hard for kids to actually run away, as Paul had learned.

Paul had slept on the Clearwaters' couch twelve separate times in the past year. Leah had selflessly given up her one blanket for him and slept cold for a night, twelve times. They'd had twelve conversations and laughed for minutes twelve times. They'd exchanged twelve secrets—six each a night—twelve times. One hundred forty-four secrets. The Clearwaters' living room held one hundred forty-four secrets between the two teenagers. It was slightly pathetic, but mostly it was damn impressive. Leah understood Jacob's loneliness, but she never really fully understood _him_ , and she was a little grateful about that. Paul had her heart because he was so quick to give up his own. She appreciated it.

Paul was something else, though. Everybody knew it—especially Leah. And twelve times, he had run back to his house in the dead of the night because he hadn't been able to sleep. Paul had a restless, forgiving soul, and he always believed things would be better until a punch and a shove later, he realized that things would not be better. He'd never given up, though. Arnold was all he had, besides his friends, and deep down, maybe Arnold actually cherished him. Deep down, maybe Arnold was just utterly ashamed that he didn't know how to love his son right. Paul was always looking for the love in people, that punk.

It was some tough-ass love, if that was what it really was.

Leah had always known there was something a little off about Paul, but she had never really talked to him about it. She'd thought—and still sometimes thought—that he had ADHD. He'd always been distracted easily and tended to forget things, like simple tasks, which was why his father constantly beat him, like it would miraculously make him remember. Paul had always had trouble concentrating, too, and was rather impulsive. If it weren't for his impulsivity, he wouldn't have left Leah twelve times in the past year. He would have stayed the night all twelve times and tried to heal, but the damage was already done. Far past it. He was just damaging his damage by cutting open the wounds and pouring salt on them by himself. But he was her favorite nonetheless.

The final bell rang, and right at that moment was when the teacher walked into the classroom. Leah blinked to attention and got out her pen to finally write the reminder to meet Kim at the gym after school in her planner. Once she was finished, she sat back in her chair and absentmindedly fiddled with the pen in her hands. Out of the corner of her vision, Jacob sat up straight and looked like he was happy to be here. He was setting an example, so Leah straightened up, too. It was her first class of her first day of high school, and she needed to get off to a good start.

She couldn't help herself, however, but look back to the corner of the classroom and finally meet eyes with her confidant. _You alright?_ She mouthed.

He smiled at her. Only Paul could be treated like absolute shit and still smile afterward like the cuts didn't sting. _I'm alright._

* * *

Kim Conweller thrust her arms out and passed Leah the basketball. The force she exerted would have fazed just about anyone except Leah. Not only was she as quick as lightning, earning her the local nickname of "Lightning Leah," but she was also strong. She had to be. Leah was the type of person who liked to top herself, and as far as she knew, she was only getting better faster. She was the best and most important Leah of all the Leahs in the county; it didn't matter if your name was Leah, too, because everybody would already be thinking about Leah Clearwater.

Leah dribbled for a second, and then looked forward, prepared her form to shoot. She was just past the three-point line, and she was confident in this, pretty much like how she was confident about everything. She took another step back and reset her form, the ball just in front of her forehead. It was even more perfect, if possible. Just the way she liked it.

She got conversational as she extended her right arm and shot the ball. She kept her finishing pose as the ball sank into the basket with a nice _swish,_ and some of her nerves calmed. She still had it. She would always have it.

"So what's it like being in geometry?" Leah asked Kim, watching the ball bounce.

"It's fine," Kim said. "I don't know anybody in my classes. They're all sophomores."

Leah got the ball and quickly shot a layup. She sighed. "The loneliness that comes with being at the top."

If only Leah knew how much she could truly relate.

* * *

Leah jabbed Kim in the side. "Damn it, Kim, quit eating all the Doritos."

"You better watch your fucking mouth, Leah," Sue Clearwater, Leah's mother, called from the kitchen. Leah said sorry, but Sue had already returned to her conversation on the telephone.

Kim smirked and kept her hands in the bowl of Doritos.

With nacho cheese-covered fingers and palms cold with cans of Coca-Cola, Kim and Leah did what they normally did on the weekdays during the school year: raid the local gas station for snacks and wait for Kim's inevitably late parents to pick her up by watching _Selena_ on VHS.

It was what they did when things weren't going so well, when one of them wasn't feeling so good, and sometimes Kim needed that more than anything. She wasn't the type to ever directly tell Leah that she wasn't feeling well or that she needed some rejuvenation via their old routine because Kim was just too damn independent, but Leah knew. They shared a kind of intuition that neither of them wanted to give away verbally because of their pride. Someday, one of the girls' prides was gonna get in between them, but Kim would ignore it for as long as possible and Leah would internally obsess over it for the rest of her days, and neither of them wanted that.

"Did you see Paul today?" Leah asked Kim with her eyes on the box television.

The question had gotten so old to Kim. Leah talked about Paul like he was a movie star, and to Leah, he was. Everything about him was damn near cinematic. He was a movie on his own. Leah couldn't pinpoint why—maybe it was the way that he walked, or the way that he talked—but she just _knew_ it. Even at the tender age of fourteen, if Leah was absolutely sure of anything, it was that Paul was everything. He was her absolute favorite.

"I didn't," Kim replied, staring blankly at the same scene she had viewed only fifty other times in Leah's presence. Jennifer Lopez gyrated across the stage, and Kim really, really wished she had been old enough to see the real Selena perform live. J-Lo was good, but Selena had been a legend.

"What happened?" she asked. "His dad beat him again?"

"Mm-hmm. Real bad this time."

"That sucks."

Leah wasn't surprised that Kim sounded uncaring; she didn't expect her to care. Kim didn't know anything about broken households or abusive parents. She'd grown up in an old money household with parents who didn't particularly care for her, but they weren't alcoholics like everyone else's parents, and they certainly never laid a hand on her. Kim had never really been hit before—the girl could never handle it.

But that was how Leah and Kim's friendship worked. The mechanisms lied in carrying on even though the former girl thought of other friendships as the latter didn't understand, and while the former girl put their love first and the latter hardly recognized it at all.

Their friendship was also history more than anything. They appreciated the history they had with each other—besides being alive, being friends with each other was the longest habit both girls had kept up.

What would they be if they weren't historical?

* * *

 _ **A/N:** This is Static._

 _-HalcyonSeasons_


	2. II

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight or any part of it. Also, Sydney (vampiregirl93) has proofread this chapter, as well as the previous one. Thank you, lovely._

 **II.**

 _i get this feeling like_  
 _it all could happen_

* * *

The summer of after her freshman year was the last normal summer Leah would ever live to see.

It started out like any other summer: she was thankful that the school year was over (even though she hadn't really struggled throughout the nine months), and she was immensely thankful for the fact that she could focus on other things. Leah would go to the beach and the park that accompanied it every other day to play basketball, and she would hang out with her friends at their houses in the days in between. She would come home to her parents in the backyard, barbequing and drinking beer like nothing was wrong. In any other summer before this one, nothing truly was wrong—or at least that far from right.

This summer started out as normal as ever, but then Leah got a job. It was minimal. She would be helping out her cousin, Emily, at her part-time job in a rental store in Neah Bay. Emily was more grown than the rest of them, being sixteen and about to be a junior and very, very mature. But Emily knew better than to try to punk Leah.

So that June, Leah hitched a bus every other day to Neah Bay, where Emily resided (yet insisted on attending Forks High School). Emily's dad was a Makah living on the reservation there, but Emily and Leah were related through their mothers, who were sisters. Leah had been visiting Neah Bay for summers on end, so the bus ride wasn't that bad.

Leah was glad that she didn't live in Neah Bay, and she always pitied Emily _because_ she lived in Neah Bay. Neah Bay was in the same county—or the badlands as most people around here called it—as Forks and La Push. It was just never far enough. Whenever Leah visited, she was reminded that it was truly on the edge of the world. She always thought that if she stuck around for too long, she just might fall off. She also constantly prayed that Emily would stay on.

* * *

"Get a move on, Emily! You're not getting paid to just sit there."

 _Fuck you, man! I'm hardly getting paid at all._

Emily Young continued to tap her pen next to her little black spiral journal, blatantly ignoring her boss, Trent. Ink was spattered on the side of her right hand; it had been a long day, so she'd gotten a lot of writing in while Leah watched her. Writer's block used to plague Emily when she sat at home, unemployed, but the second she got a job was the second she started to write her novel again. Emily was working on her life story, but she kept changing the name of it every time she picked up the pen. Also, it looked kind of like a diary right now, so that wasn't doing her any good. She wanted it to end up as an epic.

It wasn't like Emily's family didn't have a little bit of money, because they did. She wasn't like Kim, with her lazy, snooty, old money. Emily's parents—not her grandparents, or her great-grandparents, or so on—had made a life for their family, which consisted of them, sixteen-year-old Emily, and her younger brother, Michael Jr. Money shouldn't been everything, but when one had it, it was. Emily's parents had it.

So why was it that Emily was working less-than-minimum-wage at a goddamn hardware rental store? She could see Leah here, but Emily didn't have to be here at all.

Yeah, it was convenient—it was just down the street from her house in Neah Bay, so she didn't have to drive in _her own car_ that she didn't like to put gas in, anyway—but it was fucking stupid. Emily only got the job because her aunt used to work there, and was probably the best goddamn employee there was. But her aunt wasn't Emily. The minimum wage in Washington was about nine dollars and thirty cents by the hour; Emily and Leah got paid eight fifty. _What the fuck is this?_

It was fucking stupidity, that's what it was.

On average, in America, the white man gets paid more than the white woman, who gets paid more than black people in general, who gets paid more than Latinos in general. Where did Emily and Leah fit in there, being Native women? Emily didn't know. The white people probably didn't care (as usual), but that was sort of their thing throughout history, and the Natives were still going strong despite the constant abuse. Why stop? Why sleep? Money didn't stop and money didn't sleep.

The store that Emily and Leah were "working" in was asleep. Things in the store were always slow around 5:15. Customers always thought it was too late to come in and pick up a drill, so they didn't come in at all, but Trent—old and "still made of gold," as he liked to say— had hope, so he kept the front doors wide open. Emily had never been fond of the outdoors, merely because there was nothing to do besides get dirty and a couple shades darker, but to get off work early today… it'd be a dream.

There was nothing to do in Neah Bay, period. But there was nothing to do in La Push except go to the beach, so that was what Emily and Leah were gonna do today. The second the clock struck six would be the second they both clock out on the computer, wave goodbye to Trent and their other coworkers, and dip the hell out of there. Emily's boyfriend, Sam, would be out there, waiting for them in his silver pickup truck, and there would be Jared Cameron and Kim Conweller in the bed of the truck (much to Leah's dismay, even though Kim was her best friend), and Seth, too. Paul would find his own way to the beach because he loved people enough to go, even if he was supposedly grounded. There was no use in trying to budge Quil and Embry; they had other things to do and other places to be. And then there was Jacob—Jacob Black was such a mixed bag. Maybe tonight he'd take a minute to not feel sorry for himself and actually come out to play. He wasn't like Emily in that way, though; Emily was usually the life and death of the party (to her friends, not to her), so if she didn't come, there was no use in anyone going. Everyone could live without Jacob going out with them, though they couldn't necessarily live without him. Jacob was complicated in that way.

Pen to paper, Emily wrote away at her novel. The main character of her story was always struggling with something, dealing with event after event. Would she ever find happiness? She shouldn't. Emily always hated the western way of thinking that happiness was a noun, or an object, that could be achieved and won with hard work, because that just wasn't the truth. Emily was always looking for the truth.

The idea that people—white, American people—sought happiness in life was so pretentious and cliché that it hurt. Happiness wasn't a prize to Emily; it was an emotion. A person could _be_ happy… and they could also be sad and angry and confused like every other human being on the planet. Waiting for "happiness" as endgame was just silly. That whole hedonistic idea made it sound like one needed to earn happiness, when in reality, everyone deserved it. Even depressed people (or so she thought) like Emily. Even Emily's depressed little character in her stupid little novel.

Writing was tedious fucking work, but all writers knew that. Emily felt the need to always write something good, something worth reading, but she didn't have any audience besides herself, yet she could never, ever be pleased with her writing. She was actually really, truly, deeply stuck.

"You can run if you want to," Trent said after some time.

"Really?" Emily asked. She already knew; this _Really?_ game just made her sound dedicated to her job.

"Yeah, go ahead."

It was 5:45, and Emily looked through the large store windows to see Sam's blue pickup pulling in, and three heads of dark hair in the bed, swaying in the wind. Emily and Leah quickly clocked out, waved to Trent, and smiled as they felt the sun on their faces, their hair, taking over. Emily went to the passenger seat, and Paul popped out of it, leaving the door open.

"Get your ass in the back," she said, playfully shoving him out of the way. He laughed as he jumped in the back of the truck with Leah going in after him.

"I told you that you didn't have a chance," Emily heard her other cousin, Seth, say. Smiling, Emily climbed into the passenger seat.

"Hey, babe," Sam greeted her.

"Hey," she replied, rolling down the window.

"How was work?"

She shrugged as he started driving. "Work was work." They'd never been a couple of many words. "You?" she asked.

"Work was work," he repeated, a small smile upon his face.

Even though she had a boyfriend, Emily had never felt as lonely with him as she did without him. Only two people have ever had the power to make her feel lonely just by talking to her, and they were Sam and her mother. She tried to not be around her father too much, so she was stuck with Sam as a replacement of sorts.

Sam was her American dream, though: sufficient endgame. He was what she was gonna end up with whether she liked it or not, and she didn't like that feeling, but now wasn't the time to have those feelings. That was the huge difference between Emily and Jacob: she would put those bad feelings on hold for as long as she was distracted, doing shit with her friends; Jacob would allow himself to be plagued with bad feelings forever, which was why he wasn't in the truck with the rest of them.

But Emily was with her friends. Her fresh-to-death clique. Her _squad_. Jacob might come around later if he was feeling it, but he was not here now. Emily sure did spend a lot of time worrying about people who worried too much about themselves.

Heading onto the highway, kicking the speed up to sixty-five miles an hour, Emily knew her bad feelings wouldn't be back for a long time from now. Out in the badlands, there were people who liked to forget their demons. She was one of them.

* * *

Sam's pickup pulled up to the First Beach parking lot an hour later, and when Emily climbed out, the first thing she heard was Jared's voice, in its typical douchebag tone. "Shit, I think I forgot my sunglasses."

"Poor thing," Leah replied.

 _That's Leah, alright. Always needing to be heard._

Sometimes Emily forgot they were cousins because they were polar opposites. Leah was who Emily liked to believe she was on the inside—fearless and strong—except Emily had more bad qualities than Leah had the capacity of holding. Kim, too. Kim was immaculate, and Leah was a goddess, basically Athena on Earth, and then there was Emily. Emily the depressed writer and half-assed cellist who complained about everything, mostly stayed in her house, and shouldn't be around alcohol. _Cool._

It turned out that Jacob was at the beach, and so was Embry. _Oh, Embry._ He was one of Emily's favorite people, despite him barely leaving his house (just like her), so when she saw him, she was amazed. People often amazed her on sight. Sam left her side to go start a bonfire with Jacob, and Embry took Sam's place like he usually did.

She put her on around his waist platonically and they started walking toward the beach, walking behind everyone else as they all scattered for the moment.

"What's going on, whiz?" she asked casually. He was a whiz-and-a-half. He didn't leave his house, but when he did, he was smart. He had always been smart.

With his arm around her shoulder, he smirked. "Thought I'd catch the sun for a quick minute."

"Just a minute?" Emily asked. "You had me thinking you were a vampire with all the time you spent in your house."

He laughed. "You'd be surprised. How's your novel coming along?"

She regretted telling him about it from the start. As much as she trusted and liked him, letting him in on the fact that she was writing something made her feel like she gave him something that he hadn't deserved yet. Not even Sam had earned a detail of her that was so personal.

"It's a novella at this point," Emily said, "and very incomplete." The words sounded so pathetic coming out of her mouth. She had gotten the idea of the novel a year and half ago, but up until now, she had stopped and restarted and destroyed and remade a handful of times.

"That's something, though," Embry replied. "Better than nothing."

"I guess."

Upon reaching everybody else, they took their arms off of each other, and Emily felt herself growing cold. The lack of Embry's presence did that to her, as well as the fact that he had been thinking of her and her novel. He actually thought about her a lot, while she thought about Sam and how he never thought of her at all.

She didn't want to think about it right now.

* * *

The same old tales at the bonfire never expired, so when everybody gathered around once night fell, Emily felt the sense of summer and friendship and all that shit that she had been so deprived of for the longest time. Even though she was a loner, she didn't like being lonely. Now she was less lonely and definitely not alone.

Sam held her close, but Emily could see Embry in her peripherals, where she wanted to be. Almost everything was just perfect, but that was the way that things went for Em: things would be going so well until one aspect turned sour, or ugly, and threw everything out of place. Maybe if things weren't like that, she wouldn't be so afraid to leave her house, or so afraid to speak without holding back. She just wouldn't be so afraid, period.

If things weren't like that, she just might know a thing or two about bravery.

Emily glanced over at Leah, who was lost in Paul's eyes as usual. They sat close, with their hands touching at her bare thigh, just above the hem of her denim shorts. They looked serious, but he was probably telling her a crazy story—he thought his half-Mexican heritage from his mother's side made him something special. Leah didn't get lost often, but when she did, she was always with Paul and it would take days to get her out because he was just that captivating. She was a hypocrite like that, since she was always rolling her eyes and shrugging her shoulders as she constantly said to everyone else, _You guys are too obsessed with your boyfriends and girlfriends. Live for yourself._ Nobody would point out her hypocrisy, though. Leah would drown anybody in all of their faults if they ever came for her.

And that was what made Paul safe: Leah. Even though he was aggressive and hardheaded and all kinds of fire, Leah loved everything about him because nobody else could. She was as soothing as water when it came to Paul. Nobody else knew how to love him, and even though Leah wasn't at all patient in general, she was as patient as ever with Paul. He was her favorite, after all. She had that unconditional kind of devotion to him, and nobody ever questioned it because she had the power to destroy somebody with a sentence. The only thing scarier was that she wasn't hesitant about it.

So on the Friday of that Independence Day weekend, when Emily and Leah sat in the former girl's bathroom, having not yet left for work yet, Emily was scared. Besides the fact that she had just taken a pregnancy test, she was scared that Leah wouldn't be there for her. How fucking cowardly was that?

When the test told her that Emily was indeed pregnant, with the two little lines and everything, Emily waited for Leah's reaction. Leah knew before Sam—before anyone. Her reaction would truly guide Emily because she never knew what she was doing, but Leah always knew what she was doing.

"I really thought you were much smarter than this."

* * *

Leah was there, though. She was there at the end of August when they were in Emily's bathroom again. They had already quit their jobs for the summer—school was coming back. Emily would be a junior and Leah would be a sophomore.

Emily had lost the baby. No, she hadn't wanted to be pregnant in the first place, and no, she hadn't had any plans to take care of it, but the fact that it was gone hurt her somewhere inside she couldn't pinpoint. She was too much of a fucking coward to look that deep. So instead, she looked to Leah, and Leah looked her back right in the eye.

"I know you're much smarter than this," Leah told her. "Keep it moving and take care of yourself. You're gonna be fine."

School eventually came back—Emily never did.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Hi! This is my newest story, Static. Some things to know:_

 _-I've been working on this story for almost 3 years now._

 _-It will be very long (I won't say how long, though)._

 _-Rated M for language, some sex, drugs, death, heavy topics, the usual._

 _-Sydney (vampiregirl93) will be proofreading this story. (Thanks again!)_

 _-It's a chronicle, honestly. I feel like it'd work better as a TV show but it is what it is._

 _-Angst for days._

 _Thanks for reading. I'll update soon._

 _-HS_


	3. III

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight or its characters. Thank God._

 **III.**

 _and that's where the beginning of the end begun_

* * *

To be quite fucking honest, the bleachers weren't Leah Clearwater's favorite place to sit, especially in the crisp October night.

The bleachers had never been her thing. They just didn't feel right. The most sitting and watching she liked to do was when she was benched during a basketball game. Between November and March—and in the summer months, too—she was usually on the other side of the bleachers; she was usually the star. But because it was October now, she could afford to watch someone else triumph at what they did best. As much as she liked to be the star, she could always watch her best friend shove all that she had in the faces of those who had doubted her since she was little. Kim was like that now; some of Leah's confidence had oozed out of her and poured right into Kim.

Kim "Bambi" Conweller was five-foot-two, a hundred fifteen pounds, and Forks High School's best flyer on the cheerleading team. She was the best cheerleader in general, even as a sophomore; those years of gymnastics and dance classes paid off. Leah was fond of hanging out with the best, though that case wasn't always true with some of her comrades. Kim was one of the saviors of the badlands, except she wasn't quite the heroine that everyone wanted.

Kim was the all-American—real, genuine, _native_ American—dream living in a poverty-stricken environment. She just got as lucky as her great-great-grandparents, great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents did, coming from a family with rare, old money. That was probably one reason why a lot of people didn't like her today, though she couldn't be described as hated. And who could ever hate that precious face, smiling and cheering like all cheerleaders did, hoisted up in the air by her teammates, about to pop the best Scorpion move ever? Who could ever hate the bouncing, bubbling Kim "Bambi" Conweller today? Yeah, she had been weak last year; she had been a weak little freshman living in Leah's shadow who had a little too much money, and Kim still did have a little too much money, but who in their right mind would publicly hate that? Leah couldn't think of one person.

Kim was on top of the world—her own wealthy wonderland with high ponytails and short skirts and fucking the football players once the American dream was all set and relived for the night—and Leah was on top of her own. It was rad as shit. And even though they didn't hang out as much as they did last year because of Kim's new boyfriend, Leah was glad. They both needed the space to appreciate each other from afar when things got stagnant up close.

Kim did her Scorpion move, bringing cheers from the crowd (the only cheers of the night, since the football team was sucking ass), and was brought back down to the ground. When the giant field buzzer blared, indicating the end of the second quarter, the cheerleaders got into their typical formation and started a dance routine that Leah had never seen before. Kim was the junior captain, and she was always changing up the routines until they were perfect, and adding new ones all the time. Leah had been watching the entire football season.

The cheerleaders' halftime routine consisted of hip gyrating, leg twisting, and twerking (to a minimum). Leah brought her younger brother, a cute eighth grader named Seth, with her to the game tonight, and she couldn't help but wonder what was going through his pubescent boy mind.

"Do you think Kim's hot?" she asked, turning to him. She brought him to a lot of high school things now, since Emily and Sam were always up in Neah Bay, losing their minds, and Jacob was at home, losing his mind, and Paul was somewhere his mind didn't exist, most likely in a fight. (He always won his fights, so she was over worrying about him in that area.) She just hoped he would follow through with their plans tomorrow—they were gonna go see a movie, and she looked forward to it. So Seth was all Leah had now, but she didn't mind. Their mom was always at work, and their dad, Harry, was always on their nerves.

Seth got his inhaler out about to take a couple of puffs. Somebody was probably smoking out here, and he was just trying to avoid having an asthma attack.

Asthmatic, shivering, and fairly innocent, Seth ignored Leah's question, and that was when she knew it was probably a dumb one, anyway. Kim was her best friend of sorts and Leah didn't care if her little brother thought her best friend was hot. That was fucking weird.

Leah focused her attention to the cheerleaders again. Their halftime show was still going on. Kim's eyes found Leah's, and the cheerleader smiled and waved to the basketball player. They were jocks more than they were people now, as Leah expected, but Leah waved Bambi was living out her _dreams_.

* * *

Long after the rival football team went home as undeniable winners, after the dads of the white guys on the home team yelled at their kids for not being good enough, and after the always-supportive-yet-realistic coach said, _Next game's gonna be better, okay, guys? See you at practice tomorrow, and we're gonna run to make up for your loss,_ Kim and her boyfriend, Jared Cameron, the star quarterback, found themselves in the backseat of her car, in their special, secluded parking spot.

It was heavy breathing. It was even heavier words. "I love—"—pant—"you so—"—sigh—"much. Jared." And she did. She had loved him since the sixth grade, since the time when nobody was ever lovable. She had loved him before he had even known of her.

It was a rare thing for someone from La Push to fall in love with someone else from La Push when they had known each other for so long. That was more of a Forks type of thing, since part-time love was the life around La Push. Kim and Jared were different, though. Different from Leah and Paul, Emily and Sam, everyone. They were the American dream, despite being Native and having their Quileute history taken away to the point of them nearly being whitewashed in today's society, but that was not something to bring up as they were hot and heavy in the back of her car. As if Jared could keep up, anyway.

Jared Cameron was a funny guy; before Kim was a cheerleader, he had never wanted anything to do with her. And now that he had her, he'd do a thousand things with Kim except the one thing she really wanted. He'd buy her ticket, take her to Homecoming, go through all the works, and win Homecoming King and Queen with her (and he was gonna do that, too, in exactly eight days), but at the very end, they were never gonna be close enough. Kim was never gonna be satisfied. It was always guys like him who were holding girls like her back, and if those girls clearly expressed what they wanted, they'd be seen as sluts. If they expressed it a little, then they were teases. If the guys wanted it but the girls didn't, the girls are prudes. If the girls followed through, then their reputations were tarnished. It was as American as a fly taking a shit on an apple pie.

"Come _on_ ," Kim moaned into Jared's skin. "You love me, right?"

"I do," he said, his hands up her little navy blue skirt. "I love you." And he did… to an extent. What a funny guy.

"Then what are you waiting for?" she asked. It was not a hard thing to do, really; all he had to do was take all that anger and pity and humiliation of losing an important game and take it out on his girlfriend. That was what funny guys like him did, anyway. And there was a special bonus, too: when the team won, the guys all went out for burgers and beers and the girlfriends tagged along as trophies.

The truth was that Kim wanted him—she had wanted him for a long time and she was ready for him. For somebody as dumb and boyish as Jared, one might think that he'd take advantage of someone as beautiful and wonderful and _willing_ as Kim, but he didn't want to. He didn't want anything sexual to do with her at all, and it made her feel terribly, intolerably inadequate.

The only thing that would make this moment worse would be if he called her a slut again. That was one of his top nicknames for her when she wanted to have sex and he didn't, and she felt a sour taste in her mouth every time the word came from his.

His lips returned to hers, but her thoughts weren't forgotten. He played around for a moment or three. She was still thinking, though. She was always thinking about something else when she was with him. It was that way with everybody, she sadly realized.

"Homecoming," he decided. "Homecoming."

She wanted to ask _What's the difference between then and now, besides a week?_ She knew the answer, though: appearances. They wouldn't want to be a controversy.

And then he left her body. "Lemme drive you home," he said. With her black hair unruly and going back to its natural curls that she didn't dare show in public, Kim climbed across the backseat and into the passenger one. _Homecoming_ rang in her head.

And he did take her home. The Friday night lights were all off, and appearances were back on, even in the most intimate of times.

(He didn't offer to take her out for a burger, though; that only happened when there was a good game. She wasn't that special tonight.)

* * *

Kim's mind ran as wild as it usually did after a game. She wasn't tired; her entire world was lit up and she wouldn't want to miss a second of it.

She glanced at her cell phone. 10:12. She should have gone out. She should have gone somewhere, anywhere. She didn't have anyone to go with, or nobody she truly wanted to go with, which was fine with her as long as she was peaceful. Kim was the kind of person who could thrive on her own—she was just that interesting. She didn't need anybody, ever.

Maybe that was why Jared didn't like the real her and things with Leah just weren't the same.

But it was cool. That was all that Kim could tell herself.

 _It's cool._

She glanced at her cell phone again. 10:16. _Damn_. She dialed Quil Ateara's cell phone number because she respected his life enough to not have his house phone ring this late at night.

" _This number has been disconnected."_

Kim groaned. Quil's phone was always off. She spent a good two minutes considering, considering, considering before she called his house phone. She decided wanted to be entertained more than she wanted him to live at this moment.

Quil answered on the first ring. "My mom's gonna kill my ass for having the phone ring this late, Kim," he answered.

"Hello to you, too."

She could see him sneering from here. "Yeah, hi," he said. "What's up?"

"I'm bored. What's tonight's special?"

"Whatever you want, babe."

"Come through, then."

"All the way out to the sticks?" Quil laughed. "Nah, I don't feel like getting murdered tonight."

"And you think I'm gonna drive all the way out to the ghetto?" Kim scoffed.

"Hey, your privilege is showing. For someone who's Quileute, you sure act white as hell."

That stung a little. "You know I'm just fucking with you," she said. "I can be there in ten minutes. Is your mom home?"

"Yeah, but she's asleep. Come in through the basement."

"Alright, I'll see you soon."

Kim hung up and changed out of her cheer uniform and into sweatpants and a hoodie. She didn't straighten her hair again; she only wore her hair like that in front of the people she needed to impress. She didn't really know what was in store for her tonight at Quil's, but being anywhere but alone with her thoughts was good enough for her. In front of others, she was impeccable and undeniably free. Alone, she wasn't as independent as she liked to think she was.

The twenty minute drive to Quil's was a silent one. She lived out in the bare side of Forks, the outskirts that was all fields and no trees. Truly the sticks. But she felt as safe as ever. It was La Push that gave her some trouble, deep down. An entire side of her family was from there, except for the one she lived with since they had come from someplace else, but whenever she entered La Push, she always felt fear and danger hanging over her head. Maybe she did act white. Maybe she really was as white on the inside as everyone thought she was. Or maybe she was just freaking out; everyone knew that the area—Forks, La Push, and anything in between—was the badlands. It was where people destroyed themselves and everyone else around them. That was what scared Kim more than anything—she couldn't even fathom the idea of tearing herself apart or authorizing anyone to do that to her.

Kim parallel-parked on the side of the road by Quil's house and headed towards the basement door. She used the old childhood code (knocking seven times) and Quil promptly opened the door. Trap music idly played from a boom box in the background. Jared had mixed the music for Quil, she could tell. He'd made her the same mixtape. She stepped into the basement. It was just her and Quil. _Lonely-ass party._

"I think Jared's gonna be over in a little bit," Quil informed her, settling in on his couch. The basement was relatively neat; his mom was still making him clean it up every day.

"You think I give a fuck?" Kim asked, sitting down next to him. She pulled her feet up onto the couch and hugged her knees.

"Just saying," he replied.

"What do you have?"

"What are you in the mood for?"

"I doubt you've got a grocery store of this shit here in your basement, Quil."

"You got no idea, Bambi," he replied. "This is gonna be a trap house in a minute."

"I'll be waiting for it," she said with a roll of her eyes. "You got weed, right?"

Quil got off the couch and went over to his desk. "You already know," he said with his back turned.

"Do you even have anything besides weed?" she asked him. "Not like I'm interested in anything else, but I was just wondering."

He turned back around with a freshly-rolled joint. "Then don't worry about it."

She grabbed a lighter off the little table in front of the couch. "Let me light it."

He handed her the joint and she had it lit in no time. It was nights like these when she needed to chill the hell out. With weed smoke in her lungs and the sickest bass drops known to mankind in her ears, she didn't care. She was chill. She was even chill when Jared came over. The three of them didn't care for or know anything else in the world besides their weed and their music. That was all that mattered.

Kim didn't know how long she had been at Quil's, but sometime in the night, Quil's mom started to come downstairs into the basement. Joy was in her bathrobe and old slippers, and she was pissed.

"Quil, what did I fucking say about having your music on too—"

And then she saw Jared passing the blunt to an eager Quil.

 _At least it was good while it lasted._

* * *

The next morning, Joy sent Quil to Neah Bay to live with his aunt. He caught the earliest bus to Neah Bay; nobody even got to say goodbye. In fact, nobody had even known that Quil had moved until Emily called and told Leah that she saw him in Neah Bay the day he arrived. Quil was going to be living with his Aunt Jodie to get clean and off of his mom's nerves.

"That sucks," Leah had told Emily.

"It's fucking ruthless," Emily had said.

That October Saturday, Sam Uley visited Emily in Neah Bay. Since the end of last summer, Emily had fallen off the edge of the earth. She still went to school in Forks (semi-regularly), but once it was two o'clock in the afternoon, she drove back to Neah Bay and went back to hiding. She was used to it.

She hadn't seen anyone—especially Sam, because Embry was just as cowardly as Emily—in what felt like years, so when he visited her, she had no idea how to react.

She stopped looking through the peephole and gained the courage to open the door. "Hey," she said, trying to keep everything together. She wasn't sure if she knew him anymore. She didn't know if she could pour herself out to him freely, or if he would just look at the mess and keep walking by.

"Hey," he replied, curt as ever.

She hated him. She just wanted him to go back to La Push and never look back, but it was a ninety minute trip. His car was in the process of being repaired by Jacob, so he had to have been desperate enough to take the bus. He had to have some purpose in being here.

"How's it going?" she asked, being the queen of conversation. She hated herself even more for opening the door. There was a reason why they had fallen out. Why would she just let him back into her life like this?

"Alright," he replied. "How've you been?"

She didn't want to lie, but she did it, anyway. "I've been okay."

"Wanna talk?"

"Sure."

* * *

Emily and Sam bought an ungodly-sized bag of gummy worms at a corner store and then took a bus back to La Push, where they would always be, talking the entire time. All of Emily's remaining money went to that bus rides and those gummy worms, but she didn't care. Her money was well-spent, and she realized she didn't hate Sam so much after all. The only thing she hated was that ninety minutes wasn't enough time.

"I'm not entirely sad about last summer anymore," Emily admitted, looking down at the gummy worms between them. "What made me the most sad was the fact that we didn't talk much after that." She looked up at him. "Why is that?"

He shrugged. "We get caught up in shit," he said. "It happens. I should've at least called you."

She nodded. "I should've called, too."

"I'm sorry," he told her, "for not being there."

"It's alright. We get caught up in shit."

"Wanna start over?"

She nodded. "I'd like that."

* * *

Paul had followed through on his movie date with Leah, and it had been nice even though the feature sucked. (They should have just saved the seven bucks and watched a film at home instead.)

Leah looked down onto the sidewalk, waiting for the _crunch_ of the red and orange autumn leaves with every step she took in her fake Converse.

They walked close, but not holding hands or anything. They were the best of friends, but not like that. Leah didn't want to be that way as a result of her pride, but she could easily give that up if Paul could focus long enough to sustain it. She could—and would always—change her ways for the sake of Paul. But as a result of his ADHD, they both knew that a relationship like that wouldn't happen. The entire ordeal would just be frustrating for the both of them.

"Did you hear what happened with Quil?" Paul asked.

Leah scoffed and nodded. "Emily told me this morning. Quil's ridiculous."

"I had no clue he was doing weed."

"Me neither. The guy's as dumb as a bag of rocks, though. Like, his mom's _basement_? That's stupid as hell."

"I talked to Jared about it earlier," Paul said, staring ahead at the road. "He doesn't feel bad, but he's a little fucker, anyway. Have you talked to Kim since it happened?"

"I haven't talked to Kim at all this school year," Leah admitted.

"Well, they got caught, too, but Quil's mom didn't tell their parents. Jared's parents wouldn't believe her and Kim's parents are uppity."

 _For someone as smart as Kim, she sure is a fucking idiot_ , Leah thought. "That's so wild."

"I know."

"It's a good thing their parents don't know. They wouldn't be able to go to Homecoming if they did."

"Pffft."

"We should go to Homecoming," Leah suggested.

Paul narrowed his eyes. "Why?" he asked crudely. "It sounds dumb."

"Well, because you're my favorite person in the world, for one thing," Leah said, "but if that's so _dumb_ , then I guess it doesn't matter. It's whatever."

They started to approach Paul's house. They let the conversation dissipate as much as she didn't want it to. She wanted a reason to keep going because she could always keep up with him.

"See you Monday?" Leah asked as they went up the steps to his front door. She didn't know why she tried to get solid answers from Paul (probably because she became an optimist around him), since he hardly ever came though.

"I'll try," he said.

 _You always say that._

He pulled her in for a tight hug, and they held on for longer than they usually did. With his chin nuzzled into her shoulder, he breathed her in like it was the last time he was gonna see her. She didn't want to think this could be the last time.

Loving Paul, knowing Paul in the way that she did, and simply being graced by Paul's presence made Leah's world a bright, passionate red. With Paul, she felt the heat pulsating through her entire body. He just had that effect on her; he made her feel alive. Leah's world was red with Paul by her side.

"You're my favorite," she whispered into him.

He rubbed circles into the small of her back, where her flowing hair ended. "And you're mine."

She let go before he did, and even when he did, he wasn't finished. He looked down at her and gave her the classic smile that was hers and hers only. The smile that said, _We've got this._

He went into his house and she started to head back to hers. She braced for the yelling, braced for the screams. And on Monday morning before Paul got into first period, she braced for the black eye and scraped arms, but she didn't see a new bruise on him.

Leah had never been so thankful for the silence and stability.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Sorry this took forever. My computer's been a bit of a fucker. I'm literally using Internet Explorer right not and this sucks. Here's a few other things to expect from this story, ship-wise:_

 _-Leah/Paul_

 _-Jacob/Bella_

 _-Bella/Paul_

 _-Potential Leah/Jacob_

 _-Leah/OC_

 _-and more_

 _Thanks for reading. I plan on updating soon._

 _-HS._


	4. IV

**_A/N:_** _I own no part of the Twilight Saga._ ****

 **IV.**

 _we know it ain't right but we do it anyway_

* * *

Whenever something happened to somebody on the Quileute reservation, it happened, and then it was over. When a kid killed themselves or somebody's uncle got hit by a drunk driver, everyone else felt bad for a little while, but once it was over, it was over. After that, nobody talked about it. Nobody even thought about it. That was just life and it kept moving on because Quileutes were, as Sue Clearwater would put it, "damn resilient."

Leah couldn't have been a real Quileute, then, because the initial departure of Paul Lahote rocked her to the core, and she would never move past it.

It was a cold Thursday night, the twelfth of November (and four days short of her sixteenth birthday) when Seth ran to Leah's bedroom. He came from just down the street, but Leah thought he was gonna die when he made it to her room. Seth was the most asthmatic person in town—probably in the state, too—and Leah sat up in her bed when Seth slammed open the door, panting.

"Seth, what's wrong?" she demanded.

"It's—" He took out his inhaler from his pocket and shook it up with all the energy in his body. He started to take a few puffs. "Paul. Leah. Do some—" —cough— "thing."

Leah stood up and took Seth by the shoulders. "Is Dad at Charlie's?" she asked.

Seth nodded, struggling to breathe. His face was red, his eyes were shut tight, and he was coughing up a storm. He was having the third worst asthma attack of his life.

"How bad is it, Seth? One to ten."

He dropped his inhaler and held up eight fingers, coughing and wheezing.

"Shit," Leah whispered.

She got Seth to sit down on the floor, and she picked up his inhaler. She shook it up for five seconds and helped him hold it up in his mouth. He took six puffs, waiting nearly a minute between each one. Once Leah was positive her brother wasn't dying, she bolted down the street to Paul's house, clad in sweatpants, a tank top, and Adidas socks and sandals since basketball practice ended only half an hour ago.

When she neared Paul's front steps, there was a crowd surrounding it and people were yelling. All the teenagers on the rez were there, as well as many adults. She pushed through a few people until she got in front of the crowd, at the bottom of the steps. All she saw was red.

Paul was beating the living shit out of his father, and nobody was doing anything to stop him.

Leah ran to Paul and tried to pull him off of his father, but she was only dealing with unadulterated rage, even as the man on the ground was clearly unresponsive. She backed up, trying not to get punched.

"Calm down, Paul," she said, but he didn't hear her over the crowd. "Paul!"

Suddenly, Jacob and Jared appeared behind her and tried to pull Paul off of his father. They succeeded, but Paul was still so pissed that he was snarling. He had the worst temper, and his ADHD wasn't helping. It never did.

"Chill, Paul," Leah said loudly. "Chill the fuck out."

Paul didn't listen to her; instead, he went back to punching his father. It was all bone and blood at this point, and hardly a fight. The man was unconscious. Jacob and Jared had pulled Paul off again, but with the help of two tribal policemen.

"Hey, he's good now," Jared lied.

"Yeah, he's straight," Jacob told the policemen.

The lies didn't change the fact that Paul was being handcuffed.

Leah watched as Paul was thrown into the back of the cop car, and angry, ugly tears stung in her eyes. She went up to the window of the backseat and banged her fist on it, desperate and hopeless as she demanded his attention. "Paul!" she cried. "You're my favorite. Don't you fucking forget it."

His eyes were suddenly apologetic, begging for forgiveness. "I'll be back," he told her. "I'll try, okay? I'll try. Trust me."

That was the last thing she heard from him.

* * *

Leah went home to find her family in the living room. Seth was mostly back in good health, but Sue had come home from the hospital early to tend to him. Harry had even come home from Charlie Swan's.

Sue looked at Leah with wary eyes. "Where were you and why'd you leave the house looking like that?"

Leah just realized that she looked rather disheveled in her post-practice ensemble. "I—Paul—" She was at a loss for words.

"You see that crowd out there?" Harry asked Sue and Leah. "You know what happened?"

"Paul got arrested," Leah blurted out. Sue and Harry's mouths dropped. "He beat up his dad."

"Is his dad alright?" Sue asked.

Leah shrugged. _I don't give a fuck if he's alright._ "I don't know. He was unconscious by the time they got Paul. But they put him in the back of a cop car and everything."

"Told you the kid's trouble," Sue said, shaking her head. "You get into fights like that all the time, you face the consequences."

"Wasn't his dad beating him for a while, Lee?" Harry asked.

Leah nodded. "He beat Paul all the time. Paul would come into class with new bruises pretty much all the time."

"The fucker deserved it, then," Harry said. "Beating his own kid like that." Leah felt some gratitude. Her father always took her side.

"Arnold wasn't always a bad guy, though," Sue countered. "He was going through a lot."

"He was putting Paul through a lot," Harry replied. "There's no excuse for that kind of shit."

Sue shrugged. "Whatever you say. The kid's always been trouble to me."

Leah started to boil with anger. Her hands curled into fists at her sides and she said, "Mom, you don't even know Paul. Don't talk about him like that."

"I know you're not balling up your fists like you're gonna punch me," Sue said with raised eyebrows and pursed lips. "You need to quit coming at me like I'm one of your little friends."

Before she could get slapped, Leah silently retreated to her bedroom. Seth followed, going back to his own bedroom. Sue and Harry remained in the living room.

Leah tried not to eavesdrop, since it probably didn't matter, but she couldn't stop herself. She overheard her parents talking about her—and her attitude.

"She gets it from you," Harry said.

"Bullshit," Sue replied. "Her attitude is all her own. If I ever talked to my mama the way she talks to me these days, I would've been slapped so hard I wouldn't have any more teeth. She gets it from the kids she's been hanging out with, too."

"Kim's a good kid," Harry reminded her.

"Kim hasn't been around here for months. And Emily—pfft." Leah could feel her mother rolling her eyes. "I haven't talked to her or my sister in months. They act like they don't have to talk to anybody just 'cause they live up in Neah Bay. I'm telling you, Harry, it's Paul that's the problem."

"Paul's a good kid, though," Harry said. "Yeah, he's got a temper, but he's not a bad influence on Leah."

"We'll see. When she starts getting into fights and shit, then you'll know the truth. I never liked that boy. Not one bit."

The only thing Leah hated more than her parents not understanding anything about her was their refusal to attempt to understand her. They always talked _about_ her, but never _to_ her. To them, Leah didn't exist. How could they talk about her and what they needed to do without ever talking to her, yet get mad when she didn't abide to their standards, having not known of them directly? It just wasn't fair.

And even worse, her dad was so fake about it all. Harry would talk about her, gossip about her with Sue, and then go to Leah's room to tell her he loved her. She knew he loved her—he was her biggest fan, after all—but he put up a front all the time. Maybe he was afraid of Sue's attitude; maybe he was afraid of Leah's. He didn't dare to shrink either of the women, though. He knew better.

When he was done talking with Sue, he went to Leah's bedroom. He told her he loved her and that he was sorry about what happened to Paul and that he was also sorry for Sue being such a bitch. Leah fake-forgave him and gave him a hug. Harry told her that he was proud of her for her achievements, and that he would definitely-always-for-sure go to her next basketball game. She was becoming a pro at the sport now. She was looking into sports scholarships at Ivy League schools and other universities. At the start of the season, Harry could tell it was going to be her best season yet. His praise was all the same.

The only difference in their exchange this time was that at the end of it, he leaned in and told her, "Be good."

* * *

School the next day was torture. Leah hadn't gotten any sleep knowing that Paul was gone, and she was bombarded with questions since everybody knew they had been close. She didn't know why he did it (he had probably been keeping those feelings pent-up), she didn't know where he was (he could be about anywhere), and she didn't know when he'd be back (hopefully soon).

Kim couldn't look Leah in the eye that Friday. She knew what happened since Jared had filled her in, but what was she supposed to say to Leah? That she was sorry? Kim was so bad at saying sorry; it would come off as insincere. But Leah needed the interaction; she needed to know that at least somebody besides her father was on her side, and believed that Paul was still a good person, but just did bad things.

Kim didn't feel the same way about Paul like Leah did. Kim didn't know the first thing about Paul, and she couldn't bring herself to pretend that she did for the sake of Leah's sanity. So Kim would lay low, avoid interaction, and wait for Leah to resurface. That was all their friendship was: waiting. It would carry on like everything else.

If only Leah could carry on like everything else, too.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks for reading._


	5. V

_**A/N:**_ _I own no part of the Twilight Saga. Also, Sydney beta'd this chapter. Thank you, sis._

 **V.**

 _i'm just apart and need my space and_  
 _time to myself, ventilation_  
 _no time for you, i lack the patience_

* * *

Leah's first winter without Paul's presence was the coldest, quietest winter she had ever lived through.

She still played basketball. It was one of the last things she truly enjoyed, but she knew she didn't have to mourn over Paul as much as she could. Being without him was going to suck, but he was the comeback kid. He always returned. And she knew he was trying—he always did. That stupid, romantic sense of optimism was what helped her the most, besides his phone calls.

He called her—twice. The first time was at Thanksgiving to tell her he was in a juvenile detention center (again) in Sequim, and the second time was at Christmas to tell her he was in Tacoma, living with his mom. He apologized for not calling on her birthday—he swore to her that he tried, but couldn't.

Because of his father's history of abuse, Paul had no choice but to live with his mom now. He was learning more Spanish and spending more time with family. On the other side of Puget Sound, he had more family than ever. It was all for the better, he promised, but Leah selfishly wished his mom lived here. She wished even more that Paul's father was dead, after all that Paul had been through.

After Christmas, Paul stopped calling Leah. To her, it was whatever. He had things to do, and so did she. She convinced herself that as long as he wasn't dead, they would be okay. He would always come back.

Despite this being one of the worst winters Leah ever experienced, she played her best basketball season to date. Game after game, she killed and killed, leading her high school team to victory. With her five-foot-eight frame, she was a power forward (or a center, depending who was on the court with her), and she killed it every time. Nobody had ever thought the post player (and a sophomore on the varsity team, no less) would be the one to lead, but there were a lot of surprises in her life at this point. Lightning Leah was pure magic; nobody could deny it. Harry even kept his promise and made it to her games—almost all of them.

On break from her school team and during a Seattle tournament in January with the select team she had been with for three years, Leah was scouted by a friend of a coach at the University of Pennsylvania. Even as a sophomore, Leah had been looking into UPenn with starry eyes; it was an Ivy League, expensive as hell, and all the way in Philadelphia. She had done all that she could, put videos of her performance up, and tried to contact people, but she had decided that she would stick to more local goals.

But that day in Seattle, after one of her games, Leah was approached by a tall blonde lady. She had asked if she was Leah Clearwater, and if she was interested in going to UPenn after graduation. Leah had expressed her interest (many times), and she and the lady (Carol was her name) got in touch. Carol knew the head girls' basketball coach at UPenn.

A week later, Leah was offered a full-ride sports scholarship to UPenn under a couple of conditions: she kept her grades up, kept playing basketball well, and didn't get any serious injuries.

Leah was going to live out her fucking dreams.

She just wished she had somebody to celebrate with, but all of her best friends were too far gone.

Leah was met with multiple congratulations once word of her scholarship got out via Sue. Leah was "setting the new standard" and "giving these reservation kids some hope." Leah was an idol. She was the new savior of the badlands, the savior everyone deserved. And even though she was at the top, she got lonely. That feeling had always been with her, and she wasn't proud to admit that.

Because the girls' and boys' basketball seasons went for the same amount of time, she would go to the boys' games as long as they didn't interfere with her own practice or games. It was easy to go and slip in with an acquaintance or another teammate as if she had a purpose.

The Friday after she got her scholarship to UPenn, she went to the big home game against Forks High School's rival, the Montesano Bulldogs. Leah hadn't really known of the magnitude of this game—the varsity girls weren't even playing in it, so she hadn't found the time to care. But apparently, it was a big deal. Everyone on the home side in the bleachers was decked out in blue and gold. For this game, they brought out the marching band, the cheerleaders, and some dorky kid dressed up as the Spartan mascot. Leah didn't even know they had a mascot costume guy. It was a pretty big fucking deal.

Leah, clad in a simple school sweatshirt, blue jeans, and what she called Converse, sat in the bleachers next to her teammate, Krystal, a shooting guard. Krystal had some blue and gold sort of string in her caramel-colored hair, a gold tutu on over blue leggings, and her pink cheeks decorated with blue and gold lines under her green eyes. She was the true vision of school spirit, and she was also turned to her left, in an engaging conversation with somebody else. Leah just watched the game like she really cared.

That Friday night, Leah remembered why she didn't like to watch boys' basketball, especially varsity: it was just so cheesy to her. The boys didn't showcase much skill; they just heavily relied on gimmicks and quick moves and turns that would wow the crowd. They also weren't too keen on teamwork or communication, which led to plenty of fouls and anger and confusion. The boys' coach was fuming on the floor, yelling at the players, the referees, _and_ the other coach. To Leah, it all looked like a train wreck, but to everyone else, it was fun. It was the Spartan experience.

She especially watched the center on the floor, Tom Anderson, a junior. He played the same position as her (roughly), so she couldn't help but compare. He wasn't quick like her or at all light on his feet, despite being more lanky than muscular, but he was a brute on the floor. He fouled more than anyone else on the court, but he was kept in because he was the son of the sports administrator, Mr. Anderson. So of course, Tom had even more privilege as if he needed it, being a straight, white male and all.

Krystal turned to Leah. "Do you see Tom?" she asked excitedly. "Isn't he awesome?"

Leah scrunched up her nose. _For someone who plays varsity basketball, you sure don't know what all the positions are supposed to play like. Typical shooting guard._

"He's okay," Leah said. "I just wish the coach would take him out. He's fouling on everybody on the court."

Halftime couldn't come slower, but it finally did. Leah considered going home, but then she remembered that Krystal was her ride. She stayed seated in the bleachers, and the cheerleaders started their halftime show. It was mediocre, at best. Leah knew that Kim hadn't come up with the routine; she would have been front and center, and there would have been way better music. Leah now felt bad about not wishing Kim a happy birthday back in December.

Leah and Kim locked eyes at one point, but neither of them waved to the other girl. If Leah hadn't already been cold, then she froze that night. She and Kim really were over. She didn't want to believe that her best friend had broken her heart like that, but she did. Paul hadn't had a choice, but Kim did, and she had chosen to break Leah. Leah had always put their love first, but Kim had chosen not to love Leah at all.

Kim's pride got in the way, just like Leah always thought it would.

* * *

After the game (which, surprisingly, the Spartans won), Krystal went to the bathroom and Leah effectively lost her. Leah wandered back to the gym, hoping to find her—or anyone—just so she could get a ride home, and she found Tom Anderson instead. He was standing near the doorway, talking with three of his teammates, and when he saw Leah, he tried to drape his arm around her like they were even remotely close.

She pulled away from him and sneered. "Move," she said. Tom's friends laughed.

"Oh, c'mon, Ivy League," he told her. "Chill."

She looked up at him. He had green-blue eyes and chocolate brown hair and a tan that almost convinced her that he wasn't white. If she hated herself enough, she might like him based on his looks alone, but she knew better than to ignore his swine-like personality.

"I bet you don't even know my name," she said with a roll of her eyes.

"Clearwater, quit being salty," he told her. "We won, you're going to an Ivy League school… this is a good night for all of us. Celebrate with us."

"No, thanks."

"Then can you tell me where Kim is?"

"I have no clue," Leah said, "but she has a boyfriend that'll rip your balls off if you even attempt to fuck with her."

"Shit, sorry," Tom said, backing away with his hands up.

She pushed through him and his friends, but in the post-game crowd, she couldn't recognize anybody. So she went near the school exit and sat at the bench, waiting until she saw somebody she knew leaving so she could ask for a ride. It didn't work. Either she was being ignored, or everybody she knew was gone.

She continued to wait, though, until none other than Tom approached her. "You still here, Clearwater?"

 _Why do white boys call people only by their last name?_ she wondered. "It's Leah," she told him. "Get it right next time."

"Sorry, _Leah_ ," he said, sitting down next to her on the bench.

"Why are you still here?" she asked him. "Everyone's gone."

"You're not gone," he reminded her.

"I'm waiting for my ride," she lied.

"Well, I'm here now."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't you have some party out on the rez to be getting fucked up at?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Not until tomorrow night," he replied. Then he smiled like he really was some clever kind of man.

She didn't smile back. "What do you want from me?" she asked. "I'm really not in the mood for your games."

"I'm not trying to play games," he said. "Promise. I just wanna take you home."

"What do you want from me?" she repeated.

"Nothing but your time and company."

She looked out the doors of the school. It was pitch black outside, and she could only see one car in the student parking lot.

She stood up. "Let's go, then."

* * *

"So, you're officially gonna go to UPenn in a couple years?" he asked her, pulling out of the Forks High School parking lot.

"Mm-hmm," she said. "Miracle, right?"

"Yeah."

"Where are you going after graduation?" she asked.

"I'm planning on going to Stanford," he replied, "but I haven't gotten any early admissions or anything."

"You've still got a year," she said. "You're a junior, right?"

He nodded, his eyes out on the empty road. "Yup. By the way, where do you live?"

"On the rez. Get to La Push and I'll tell you from there."

The remaining twenty minutes were silent as they drove through the emptiness that was Forks. She didn't know Tom, and she didn't want him to know anything else about her.

When he arrived at her house, he stopped the car and looked over at her. She had already unbuckled her seat belt and grabbed her gym bag from the backseat. "Hey," he called to her as she started to climb out of the car.

"Yeah?"

"Have a good night."

"You, too," she said curtly. She shut the door and went back to her house.

* * *

Their relationship could best be described as unexpected.

Tom was really feeling her vibe; the mean-Native-girl-who-was-a-beast-at-basketball look was really hot on her. Leah was really feeling his vibe, too; now she had things to do and places to be. She didn't have to be alone with her thoughts anymore. He was corny, but he abstained from being blatantly offensive or annoying to her. He liked to hang out with her, and most importantly, he didn't get on her nerves. It was a win-win situation.

The next day, Saturday, Tom asked Leah out and they went to a movie in Port Angeles. It had been her first time there since she went with Paul in October, and she tried not to think about it, tried not to think about Paul's whereabouts, and tried not to think of what he would think of her and Tom. The date was kind of awkward but mostly cute. Tom found her beautiful—not in an exotic kind of way, but because she truly was beautiful, and he told her that. She appreciated all of his compliments; they made her feel loved, even in a fabricated sort of way.

On Sunday, Tom didn't call her; she didn't care. Monday, after her game, he brought her flowers and hugged her in front of everybody, and she started to care. Tuesday, after his game, he kissed her in front of everybody, and she never thought her first kiss would happen like that, especially with a boy like Tom. Wednesday, they didn't even talk. Thursday, she gave him a blowjob in his car after her practice because he wanted her to. Friday, he took her out with his friends to a party out in the woods, on the opposite side of Forks from Kim. The experience was tortuously mind-numbing and slightly racist, so she vowed to never go out with him and his friends again. Saturday and Sunday, she blew him again because she wanted to, but she also thought of Paul. The next Monday, he didn't call her, and the following Tuesday night after they both had practice, they went for a long drive in his car and then stopped in the middle of nowhere to "talk." They actually had sex—really awkward, ugly, stupid sex—and she realized she didn't even remotely like him.

Uninspired, unsatisfied, and terribly (yet unsurprisingly) empty, Leah pursed her lips and zipped up her jeans. Tom held onto her, though, warm and full and satisfied. He rubbed her back and said some romantic shit, like how he loved her more than anything. _Amazing_ , she thought. _A boy gets some pussy and suddenly he's on top of the world_.

The thing about Tom, though, was that Leah had once thought he was smart, but it turned out he was quite the opposite; his core curriculum grades, set up for admission to Stanford, didn't match up with his common sense. It turned out he was just another stupid white boy. Typical. She found this out as he held her, ruffling her long, beautiful hair. In the dead of winter, when everything was still and not very good but not very bad, Tom made everything worse. Every last bit of it.

"Can I call you my Pocahontas?" he asked.

So she was used to this shit. She was used to stupid white boy sayings, used to the Native stereotypes of her being either a red princess or a nasty squaw. (Tom's friends were the most recent culprits.) She was used to explaining, too, and utilizing her words to get people to understand. It was the only damn thing she was patient with when it came down to explaining things.

But she couldn't explain forever, and sparing this stupid boy's feelings was definitely not going to last forever.

So Leah turned and slapped Tom so hard in the head that she could bet that his land-stealing ancestors felt it. She had slapped the shit out of that stupid white boy.

"I'm not," she told him, "going to explain myself again. You cannot call me your goddamn Pocahontas."

Tom didn't say anything; hopefully Leah slapped the words out of him, too.

She wiped her mouth and sat up to push open the door to the backseat. As she grabbed her bag and started to climb out of his car, Tom had the audacity to sit up, scoot over, and grab her arm. "Wait," he said.

Fuming, she impatiently asked, "What?" Her breath was visible in the frozen air.

His voice was sweet. "Call me sometime?"

She shrugged away from his grasp. "Don't hold your breath." She got out of the car and started to walk away with her arms crossed to preserve heat.

"Wait, Leah," he called again, getting out of his car to follow her. He slammed the back door shut.

She whipped her head around. "What the _fuck_ do you want?!" she exclaimed.

"I wanna take you home." His voice was sweet.

"I'm, like, two miles away from my house. I'll be fine." Her teeth chattered pathetically.

"It's January," he said with the sweetness in his voice completely gone as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his thin Adidas jacket. "Get in the goddamn car unless you wanna freeze your ass off."

"I'd rather freeze," she replied, turning around again.

Wordless, Tom went back into his car and skidded off, tires screeching as he zoomed past Leah and was soon out of sight.

She'd lied; she didn't know how far away she was from her house. She was on the outskirts of Forks, which were basically the outer parts of the middle of absolutely nowhere. She was out in the sticks, the boonies. Inevitably, the badlands. Passing through here during the day was different than being enveloped here in the night. She could get raped, shot, and killed tonight, and her body wouldn't be found for days, or maybe weeks, seeing how Native women kept going missing. The closest residential area was probably miles away, and it would be in Kim's part of town with the worst kind of people. Those people had no mercy for people like Leah.

Without a phone or hope, Leah was afraid she would keep her promise to Tom. She was gonna freeze to death, but she didn't want him to have the satisfaction of being right.

She walked in the middle of the road to nowhere in particular.

* * *

With the football season over and no Jared to be found in her proximity unless he wanted something, Kim felt more and more like spending her nights alone. It gave her time and room to grow, as she liked to believe. She grew as her eyes did, and tonight, her eyes were as big as the moon.

Kim's running shoes pounded against the frozen dirt, and it was now that she decided that this was the best time to be high. She had popped pills at nine-thirty, and after three and a half hours, she was still going strong.

 _Get high, stay high._

She couldn't get overheated in the dead of winter, and the nights were longer, which allowed her to work.

 _Work, work, work, work._

Work on cheers, work on flexibility, and work on conditioning on empty nights like this. That was what she needed. She didn't need sleep. She had too much pep to sleep—what people thought about cheerleaders was true. There were too many things to work on, places to be, and things to do. Sleep was for the weak.

Blasting some mixtape Jared had made her for her birthday last month, she ran right over her doubts. She was getting better and better, faster and faster. She had never felt more free.

As she ran in whatever direction, she saw somebody walking right in the middle of the street, in the opposite direction. It was actually more like they were dragging their feet instead of walking. If Kim was more skeptical, she would have thought they were a zombie. As she approached the person, she took out one of her ear buds and slowed down. They looked lost. They also looked like…

 _Leah._

Kim ran towards her. "Lee!" she called.

Leah's eyes were glassed over and nearly shut, and she walked so slow that Kim was convinced she was about to drop dead.

"Lee!" Kim called again.

It was like Leah couldn't even see her.

Once Kim was close enough, she wrapped her arms around Leah. Leah was nearly shocked at how warm Kim was for a January night, and began to collapse in her arms, dropping her gym bag to the floor.

"Kim?" Leah asked, her lips still chattering.

"Lee, it's me," Kim said. "What the hell are you doing out here? It's—"—she checked her cell phone—"it's one in the morning, on a school night."

"Just take me home," Leah said. "I'll tell you when we get home."

* * *

The second the girls were in Kim's bedroom in her big house in the sticks, Leah collapsed onto Kim's soft bed and exhaled as she slipped her sandals off. "This has been the worst fucking night ever," she said.

"Nuh-uh-uh," Kim said. "You need to get warm first. I'm gonna start a hot shower for you, okay?"

"Okay," Leah moaned.

Kim hurried to her bathroom, connected to her bedroom, and quickly turned on the shower. Leah was freezing—it was like she had absolutely no warmth in her body. Kim _was_ one to overreact during times like this, but she cared for Leah—a lot. Even when she had so quickly ditched and forgotten about her once cheer and Jared and other time-consuming substances became her new best friends. Even if Leah didn't believe they were still friends at all. Even then.

She went back to her room. "Hey," Kim called to Leah, her voice shrill. "The shower's ready. You know where the towels and your clothes are, right?"

Leah nodded and got up. "Yeah," she said quietly. "Thank you."

As Leah took a shower, Kim cleaned herself up a bit by wiping down her face with a towel and slipping off her running shoes, but couldn't do anything to stop her high. She ground her teeth, continued to sweat, and felt all the chills in the world. Her mouth was dry, and as she gulped down water, she only found herself feeling sick. She then tried to sit, but that was nearly impossible.

Leah was throwing off Kim's nightly episode of _What Can I Accomplish While I'm High?_ The past week, Kim had come up with four new cheer routines and three new dances just for herself. She was into pushing herself, seeing how much she could stretch and mold herself. _Get high, stay high_. Molly was a beautiful thing when she wasn't shaking because of it. When Kim was alone, Molly made Kim strong and peppy and proud. (Except when Kim ended up crashing in third period nearly every day.)

Leah was done with her shower soon enough, and she didn't find Kim sitting still when she returned. Instead, Kim was doing kicks and jumps and whatever it was that cheerleaders did in front of the longest wall of her bedroom, which was mostly just a mirror. The greatest possible gift for Kim, a dancer, a cheerleader, an artist: a way to fully judge herself, as if she needed to judge herself more.

That was the difference between them: Leah was good at what she did and everyone knew it (including Leah), whereas Kim was good (actually amazing) at what she did and everyone knew it, but she couldn't see it herself. That was why Kim had more work ethic than almost anyone else in school, in town, or in the state: she could always find improvement. It wasn't easy, though; Kim was frequently told she was amazing, but never by the one person she needed to hear it from, the one person who she had once tried to impress more than anything, except he'd told her that cheerleading wasn't a sport. Jared was nothing more than a bigot, and he wasn't really around anymore.

Jared used to be her drug supplier—at first it was weed, but once Quil got sent away, she wasn't into it anymore. She needed something to get higher, not lower, and ecstasy was it. Jared wasn't into ecstasy, though, so he stopped supplying it and went back to what he knew. Kim found other ways to get it around town. All the pretty girls used it on a weekly basis. She knew that because she frequented with them the most. She had always been fond of other girls and being comfortable in their presence. Now it was practically her culture; pretty girls and cheer and ecstasy went together like the best of friends, especially since Kim didn't have any, but she had too much pride to let Leah be right again.

Kim didn't need Jared's approval, after all. She also didn't need Leah to have the benefit of being right about him. She needed to get better, and she needed to work. All her jumping around was sort of making Leah queasy, though.

"Chill, Bambi," Leah said, emerging from the bathroom in an ensemble of pajama bottoms and a youth basketball shirt she permanently left at Kim's house for emergencies like this.

"Oh, sorry," Kim said, turning around. "I didn't even see you there."

Leah yawned and sat on Kim's queen-sized bed. She laid her head to a mint-colored pillow case and wondered why Kim had redone her room's color scheme in the past year. Royal purple was way nicer than mint. Mint didn't have enough character, and Kim had a lot of it. It was insulting.

"So what happened?" Kim asked, laying down next to Leah.

"Do you know Tom?" Leah asked.

"Tom Anderson, the guy you're dating all of a sudden?"

Leah ignored Kim's prying tone. "Yeah."

"Well, what about him?"

"He fucked me."

"Are you—?"

"Actually, he came, so technically, I fucked him," Leah clarified.

Kim's eyes widened. "Jesus."

"Yeah."

"Well, what was it like? Did it…?"

"God, it was uncomfortable as hell. Kim, never fuck a boy who doesn't know or love or respect you—please. It was so stupid and he's so stupid and I hate him."

(Kim didn't know anything about fucking any boys because Jared still refused even though she clearly expressed how bad she wanted him until he made her feel horrible about herself.)

"He doesn't even _respect_ you?" Kim demanded.

"Not even a little bit," Leah said, tears forming in her eyes not because she was sad, but because she was exhausted.

"You know what he said to me?" Leah wiped her eyes. "He was like, 'Can I call you my Pocahontas?'"

"Stupid fuck," Kim commented.

"I know."

"What'd you do?"

"I slapped him upside the head."

"Good. So why are you upset?"

"I don't know," Leah replied. "I just feel like I've been picking them—boys, the male specimen—all wrong." She thought of Paul, and how her mom always said he was trouble. He was a prime example of Leah's poor taste in men, but she shut him out. She couldn't afford to cry over him tonight.

"And, like," she continued, "I gave up my pussy to Tom. He was the most wrong of the wrong, and now he gets to walk around and say, 'I fucked Leah Clearwater.' How the fuck is that fair?"

"It's not."

"It's not," Leah repeated. "It's stupid. Tom ain't shit. His dick is like a pencil and he came in thirty seconds and now he can go on and pretend like the shit was good. Boys ain't shit, Kim, and I'm tired of them."

"I feel you. I've been tired since the beginning of my interaction with them."

"Have you gotten tired of Jared yet?" Leah wondered. "I'm just asking."

Kim stared up at the ceiling. "I guess he got tired of me."

"Why do you say that?"

"We haven't hung out in about…hmm…twenty years."

"Shut up."

"He's just being annoying right now," Kim said. "He'll get over it. He's probably going through a lot right now and I'm not helping."

"Quit making excuses for him," Leah said sternly. "You have to know your own worth and stop invalidating it for his sake."

"Thanks, Lee," Kim said like she was trying to shut her up. Kim was so stubborn sometimes—nobody could tell her anything. That quality the both of them shared was what annoyed Leah the most, and reminded her why didn't like Kim sometimes.

"I'm just saying, Kim," Leah went on, "you're fucking radiant. Don't let him try to diminish that just 'cause he's realizing he's inadequate."

"Thanks so much," Kim said sincerely. "I really needed that."

"Of course. And thanks for letting me sleep over," Leah added. "I don't think I was gonna make it home."

"You're welcome. Remind me to jump him after school tomorrow."

"Not tomorrow," Leah said. "The day after. I don't think I'm going tomorrow."

"You're Ivy League-bound. You should go to school tomorrow."

"You know about that?"

"Yeah, me and the rest of the county."

Instead of fighting Kim, she pulled the mint cover over herself. "Alright. Goodnight, Kim."

"Night."

Kim turned off the lamp and also got in the mint cover, but she wasn't tired. Leah's arm ended up near Kim's wrist, but Kim's pulse was still racing, and she was abnormally warm.

"Do you have a fever?" Leah asked.

"No," Kim quickly said. "Why?"

"You either have a fever or you're not in shape, because your heart's going a hundred miles a minute and you're burning up."

"Oh."

"Oh?"

"I'm kind of high right now," Kim admitted.

"High off what?"

"Pills. Ecstasy pills."

"Oh, god," Leah groaned.

"It's always been really hard for me to sleep," Kim reminded her. "You know that."

"Popping pills is just gonna make that worse, but whatever. Just don't keep me up. I'm Ivy League-bound, remember?"

"Of course, Lee."

"Thanks, Bambi."

Leah fell asleep and Kim followed after coming down an hour later. For the night, it was almost like they hadn't abandoned each other.

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ _Thank you for reading. I'll try not to put so much time between my updates._

 _Feedback is always appreciated,_

 _HS_


	6. VI

_**A/N:** Warning: themes of suicide and self-harm are specifically included in this chapter. I own no part of Twilight. Also, Sydney proofread this. Thanks as always, boo. Enjoy._

 **VI.**

 _adolescence didn't make sense_  
 _a little loss of innocence_  
 _the ugly years of being a fool_  
 _ain't youth meant to be beautiful?_

* * *

One bright Sunday, Leah took the earliest bus to Neah Bay. She arrived at Emily's house with a bag of gummy worms and the first three _Bring It On_ movies on DVD. It was May, but she couldn't see herself going outside. It was gonna be that kind of day—or that was at least she thought. Leah missed her cousin and wanted to make sure she was doing well.

It was Emily's brother and Leah's cousin, Michael Jr., who answered the door. He was Seth's age, fourteen now, and Leah felt like she hardly saw him at all these days. He was almost as tall as her now when she swore he was half her height last Christmas. Things just weren't the same anymore.

"Hey, Junior," Leah greeted him brightly. "Where's your sister?"

"She's asleep, I think," Junior replied.

"Really? It's ten o'clock." Emily used to like waking up early—she used to like waking up in general, too.

Junior nodded. "Yeah, I know."

"Where are your parents?" Sue had wanted to tell Leah's Aunt Aria something. Leah missed Aunt Aria. She was relatively nicer than her mom; it was probably because she got the prettier name.

"Work."

"Oh, okay. It's cool if I hang out, right?"

He stepped aside to let her in the house. "Go ahead."

Leah went to the living room and sat on the couch. Junior returned to the dining room table to resume eating his bowl of cereal and watching _Power Rangers_ on TV from afar. The house felt suddenly eerie.

"I haven't seen you in a while," Junior said.

"I know," Leah said absentmindedly. "I've been crazy busy. Have you talked to Seth recently?"

Junior's eyes were still focused on the big screen television. "Nuh-uh," he said. "You guys should come over more."

"I know," Leah said again. "We're always down in La Push, though. You can come over whenever." She stood up. "I'm gonna go to Em's room, okay? I bet she's up now."

"Okay."

Leah jogged up the staircase and went to Emily's bedroom, walking right past the bathroom where they had discovered Emily had carried and lost a baby just last summer, almost a year ago. Leah knocked on the bedroom door and waited for Emily to say, "Come in," but she was only met with silence.

Leah kept knocking. "Em," she called. "Wake up, it's me, Leah."

Still nothing.

Leah opened up the door to see Emily lying on her side on the bed, facing away from her. She rushed over to her and was about to make sure she was still breathing, but she got distracted by the blood trickling from Emily's left wrist and the razor blades next to her on the floral-print comforter. The baby blue and baby pink were decorated with red. It all clashed.

Leah grabbed Emily's hand. It was cold. "Em," she whispered. "Emily, please wake up."

Emily didn't respond. Leah ran to the bathroom and grabbed toilet paper to help her cuts. When she returned to the bedroom, Emily was sitting up, scrambling to put the blades away, but Leah already knew.

Leah sat on the edge of the bed and gave Emily some toilet paper. Emily winced as she pressed them against the cuts.

Leah wasn't used to seeing this, but knowing Emily's history of depression, she should have known. She should have known sooner. Other fading diagonal scars had covered Emily's left arm for a while, so this wasn't the first time. How could Leah have been so oblivious to Emily's suffering?

"How deep is it?" Leah asked.

"I don't know," Emily said.

"Do you want me to call my mom? She could probably get you stitched up real quick if you need it."

"No, no. I'm fine."

"Em, you're _bleeding._ I know what you were doing. Don't lie to me."

"It's not that bad," Emily said sternly.

"How long have you been doing this to yourself?"

"It's really not that important. It's stupid, really. I'm not even gonna do it anymore."

Leah widened her eyes. "How long?"

"Since December."

"Oh my god," Leah breathed. "I'm so— _oh my god_." She pulled Emily in for a hug, but Emily denied it. All Emily did was bite her bottom lip and hold back tears. She knew she was ugly when she cried, but she was so ugly to herself, anyway.

"I'm so fucking stupid," Emily whispered. "Oh my god. Is Junior home? Are my parents here?"

"Junior is," Leah said. "Your parents aren't."

"I'm so fucking stupid," Emily repeated.

"No, you're not. You're not stupid. Trust me."

Emily began to sob into her hands, hiding her ugly crying face, and Leah knew she shouldn't have left her for as long as she did.

"Trust me."

* * *

After making Emily promise her to stay safe and take care of herself, Leah caught the latest bus back to La Push that night. The ninety minutes took even longer than usual tonight. All that Leah had was her thoughts, and that idea alone left her terrified. Maybe this was just how it would be for her: solitary. She always found herself like this.

Leah sat in a chair towards the middle of the bus. The only other person on the bus was a man with thinning gray hair who sat near the front. She laid her head back against the cracked blue seat and stared out the window, biting her lip. She still hadn't dropped the ugly habit, so she continued it out of comfort. She drew blood, but she didn't care.

She couldn't find anything to fix her gaze upon besides the trees, and in that moment, she hated where she lived even more than usual. She hated the badlands—Forks, La Push, all of it.

 _There has never been anything here,_ she thought. _I've lived here my entire life and I've found nothing. Nobody wants to be better, and nobody ever tries. Why does anyone stay here?_

She wished Paul was here with her. After keeping him out of her thoughts, remaining low-key, and convinced that she definitely wouldn't see him again, she finally let her feelings out on that bus. She was afraid there would be too much emotion that the bus would explode.

She wished Paul was here right now so she could punch him in the face for throwing the world out of orbit. Everyone that Leah knew was in a retrograde now that Paul was gone—everything had gone backwards. But who allowed him to have that much power? Who gave him the authority to have that much of an effect on the rest of them? To her, it just didn't made any sense.

She supposed it was partially a good thing that he left. She got the full ride sports scholarship at UPenn on an early admission. She had a guaranteed spot to play for a big bad Ivy League school. She felt like that wouldn't have happened if he was there. In all honesty, with Paul around, she might have lost some focus. (It still really hurt her pride to admit this.)

Leah couldn't help but blame everything on Paul. He had always been there, always been the be-all and end-all of everything in her world, and this was the exact same thing except he was gone. The truth remained in front of her, next to her, and all around her.

His absence was destroying everything.

Who allowed him to have that much power?

* * *

 _ **A/N:** If this chapter was hard to read for you, it was even harder for me to write, for personal reasons. And I know nothing really happened in this chapter, but plenty does in the next few. Stay tuned!_

 _Thank you for the follows, favorites, and reviews. They are always appreciated,_

 _HS_


	7. VII

_**A/N:** I own no part of the Twilight Saga, thank God. Sydney pre-read this. Thanks as always. Enjoy._

 **VII.**

 _all work and no play_  
 _let me count the bruises_  
 _all business all day_  
 _keeps me up a level_

* * *

"You may beat all those pussies at your _girl_ games," Jared warned, his voice dripping with competitiveness, a sly smirk upon his face, "but I'm gonna take you to college tonight, lady."

Leah tightened her ponytail and pushed her sweatband further up her forehead. "That's cute," she replied, "since your ass wouldn't even be _going_ to college if it weren't for your mediocre athleticism. We all know you failed biology—twice."

Jared had totally set himself up, and she was allowed to throw it in his face. If she knew anything, it was that all boys could be dicks whether they were athletes, gamers, or anything in between. Just because he had been scouted by the University of Washington for football (and his spot wasn't even guaranteed yet) didn't mean he was allowed to be an asshole.

His smirk disappeared as he pouted his lips and narrowed his eyes. It was game on now. Jared had always playfully told Leah he was going to play her one-on-one someday, and today was that day. It was a warm September evening, just two weeks into their junior year, and the sky was just started to darken while still being illuminated by the orange twilight.

It was really too bad that Jared was going to have his ass handed to him at basketball by not just a girl, but by Leah, a girl he'd grown up with. Leah knew he wouldn't go easy on her, and he made that obvious. He would shout it to the whole world if he had to. But to be fair, she had never—not even once in her life—gone easy on _anybody_. And she and Jared had some hostility between them; they had never really liked each other, so now they could get it all out in a healthy way.

Jared and Leah weren't the only people at the park. It just wouldn't be a Leah event without an audience. Along with other kids that they'd seen here and there at school, the rest of the pack (was that what they were? Yeah, a pack) was on the rusty silver benches that faced the court, lengthwise. Even in the retrograde that Paul's departure caused, tonight was the first time in a long time that everyone got together. The fam was all back together again. Whenever they all linked up, it was guaranteed to be an interesting time, whether it was good or bad.

A week ago, Sam had suggested the game be two-on-two, or maybe five-on-five, but Jared had immediately declined it and had hyped it up as the greatest one-on-one of the year. Jared had always been all about the hype—and he'd hyped well. Everyone who was in the park had put their afflictions aside for the night and was about to watch the full-court, one-on-one game of the year tonight.

Leah placed her hands on her firm hips and smirked at her opponent. He wouldn't know what hit him tonight. "You already left two balls at home," she said wickedly. "Don't tell me you left the one that's a little more important."

Just before Jared was about to say something probably sexist, Seth, who was almost fifteen, reached for something in his sister's sports bag. He pulled out a basketball and ran over to Leah and Jared. He held out the ball to his sister and smiled. "Kill it, Lee," he told her.

She smiled back and took the ball. "You already know," she told him.

He went back to his place on the bleachers, right between Embry and Jacob, who both decided to come out of hiding for the first time since August. Leah scanned over the group. Everybody was here, except for the obvious: Quil and Paul. Paul was in Tacoma the last time he talked to her, but that was almost a year ago. He easily could be across the world or the country or even in Eastern Washington and it would still be too far away. He was so elusive that he could be anywhere.

But Leah wasn't broken about it; she was probably the opposite: pissed. Not even angry. Just _pissed._

And now, she could take all of her negative feelings out of her body and onto the pavement, and hopefully, Jared's self-esteem. She never liked him, anyway.

"Snap out of it, Lee!" Jacob yelled.

"Yeah, Lee!" Emily shouted from Sam's arms. They were an item again, and solid. Emily's wrists had been clean ever since Leah found her last May.

"Who's the ref again?" Leah asked.

"Who says we need a ref?" Jared responded, looking down at her. His stance was so big, and Leah wasn't exactly tiny herself. She briefly wondered if Kim, who was still dating him, was ever scared of him just based on his size. Perhaps his stupidity canceled that scariness out.

"Somebody who plays fair," Leah replied, poking Jared in the chest. "If we're gonna do this shit—which we _are_ —then we're gonna do this shit right."

Jared looked over to Jacob and nodded him over. "C'mon and throw the ball up, Jake," he said. Then he turned to Leah. "If we're gonna do this shit right, then I suggest you quit with your shit-talking." His voice was low.

She sneered. "Try me."

Jacob stood between them, and Leah handed him the ball. "Let's tip," she said.

"Wait a second," Jacob said, his eyes flashing between the both of them. "First person to thirty, right?"

"Twenty," Jared said.

"No, thirty," Leah corrected. "Thirty is good."

"All right," Jacob said. "Thirty."

He backed up, and Jared and Leah both corrected their stances by bending their knees and putting more space between their feet. Leah's was better than Jared's, as expected. Even though she'd known him for a lot of her life like all the other people here, he really annoyed the shit out of her because he was such a fake. He was a mindless football player trying to play basketball—real ball—and it made her a little sick. She stared down at his shiny new Jordans. He probably hadn't broken them in yet. She wanted to laugh.

"You guys ready?" Jacob asked.

Her lips pressed into a hard line and, staring at the basketball, she nodded. Jared looked at her more than he looked at the ball. _Idiot._

"And we're calling fouls, okay?" Leah asked. "We're doing free throws if it calls for it."

"Are you for real?" Jared said, incredulous.

"What, you thought you were gonna get away with fouling on me all night?" Leah replied. "Think again." Jared was fuming already. It was so funny to Leah. She already won.

"Just throw it up," Jared told Jacob impatiently.

"Jesus, fine," Jacob said.

And then he threw it up. He was out of the picture soon enough because there were suddenly two beasts on the court, except one was skilled and the other was just monstrous.

Jared only managed to tip the ball in his direction because of his height and the length of his arms, but as they ran after it, he learned that Leah's nickname wasn't Lightning Leah for nothing. She beat him down the court and stole the ball in a matter of moments.

Jared's defensive skills were underdeveloped, much like everything else. He got too close and too rough, so he was fouling her nearly all the time. At one point, he accidentally (or so he claimed) bumped her with a little too much force. The first two points Leah scored were free throws. They were perfect swishes, but it would have been nice to score in some other way.

Jared would get the ball, let it slip through his butter fingers, and get his ass handed to him on a silver platter by Leah, and that happened over and over again. By the time Leah had scored fourteen points, Jared had only scored one, because Leah had fouled him. The one free throw he did make was shaky and made out of pure luck.

Once sixteen points had been scored by Leah, they took a short break. Silently, Leah sipped her ice water and Jared chugged down an entire bottle of Gatorade that Kim had brought for him. When he was done, he was still breathing like air was running out. She wanted to offer him Seth's inhaler. There was no time to waste; Leah was going to finish him and finish him _good._

Right before they went back into the game, Jared stood across the court from Leah, his hands on his hips, breathing hard. Leah adjusted her sweatband and chuckled at him.

"Conceited much?" he asked, struggling to catch his breath

"Never conceited," she corrected him. "Always cocky."

"What"—pant—"the hell"—pant—"is"—pant—"the difference?"

"Conceited means you think you're the shit for no reason or something stupid like vanity," she explained. "Cocky means you've got the skills to back it all up. And I"—she chucked the basketball to her opponent—"have got some _skills_ , man. Work on your layups and then we'll talk."

The game continued, and if Jared wasn't angry before, he had enough fire to keep a small village warm this second half.

By the time Leah had scored twenty-two points, something more than all that anger must have sparked in Jared. He was suddenly as fast as her, and as she was sprinting her way down the court, he was right next to her and ended up stopping her dead in her tracks. He was so close that their sweat had practically become one and the same, and his arms were up, blocking everything.

She dribbled, searching for an out but unable to find one, and he looked at her in the eyes instead of the waist like he was supposed to.

"Back up," she warned him. "You're gonna foul me again if you don't."

He only got closer. She dribbled backwards, and his arms were still nearly wrapped around her.

" _Back up_ ," she said, her voice more alert.

"C'mon, Lee-Lee," he told her. "Let me see you move."

Her legs wide, stance low, and knees locked, Leah started twisting her waist to the right, and then stopped abruptly. Her knee continued to twist, though, until it buckled. And then she felt the pop.

Leah's jaw dropped along with the basketball in her hands, and she was silent for a moment before the truth took place and the tears welled up in her eyes. Her knee didn't hurt, but something deep inside her snapped just as her knee did.

"You okay?" Jared asked.

She didn't reply.

" _Are you okay?_ "

" _Oh, God, is she okay?"_

" _What the hell just happened?"_

" _Call her mom!"_

Words surrounded her in ambiguous voices as Leah was on the ground, people all around her. She heard nothing. The last thing she had heard was the snap. The snap of her ACL. The snap of reality hitting hard. The snap of Ivy League basketball—and college in general—abruptly leaving her future forever.

It was all over.

* * *

Within two months, Leah had gotten surgery for her ACL and started physical therapy. She tried to be hopeful, but she was actually behaving like a coward. She hadn't told anybody from UPenn about her injury.

Prior to surgery, her doctor had told her that she would be okay again in about nine months, which was good, but because he lived in Forks, he knew about her and UPenn. Everybody did. He suggested she tell the school, but she didn't want to. She wanted to keep up her school work and act like she'd be okay and that she would still go to college in order to get out of the hellhole she lived in.

Kim was more coercive than Leah's doctor. A couple days after surgery, Kim went over to Leah's house with her homework for the next few days while Leah recovered, and she didn't hesitate to ask about UPenn.

Leah laid in bed, exhausted because of the painkillers, but she was still mostly attentive. "I'm still gonna go," she said. She didn't sound convincing.

"Would like me to email the coach?" Kim asked.

"No—no!" Leah choked out. "You're not going to do that."

"You have to tell them you're injured. They have to know if you're planning on playing for them."

"I'll tell them," Leah lied. "Just give me my homework and get out."

Silent, Kim stood up and walked over to Leah's door. "Don't mess this up for yourself," she said.

* * *

Leah avoided contacting UPenn, and it all blew up in her face when Carol, the woman who had scouted Leah in January of her sophomore year, called. She asked if Leah could possibly come to a summer training camp in Philadelphia to train with the current players and get in touch with the coach. Leah, not thinking about the money, said she was definitely interested, and she said that she should be okay by then. She simply said that she was recovering from surgery on her ACL, and then Carol froze up. Carol would have to let the head coach know about Leah's injury, and that she would get back to her soon.

The day before Leah's seventeenth birthday, Carol called Leah again. She was sorry to say that Leah would no longer be able to play for the University of Pennsylvania in the fall of 2012, and that her scholarship had been "put on hold."

If it hadn't been over before, it was definitely all over now.

* * *

Harry Clearwater was considerably older than Sue Clearwater, but Leah had never reflected on their age difference, or the possibility that she was going to have to live without one of them at some point. Since she was little, she always thought her parents would stay together forever because they maintained the most stable relationship she had ever seen. They weren't alcoholics or abusive, which a rare thing in the area. They barely even argued, too, unless it was about Harry's cholesterol level, but Sue was supposed to worry about that—she was a wife, a nurse, and a Capricorn.

Leah never knew that things would change between them so fast, though. Even through all the changes that had taken place and the pain that Leah had felt in response to said changes, she could always return to the most stable, static people she knew: her parents. They were unchanging. Sue still had an attitude, but was completely honest. Harry was upset that Leah lost the scholarship, but he believed in her abilities, promising that she would go far in whatever she chose to do because she was so smart. Leah was used to it.

But of course, nothing lasted forever. (She needed to tell herself that more often.)

In December, Harry Clearwater had a heart attack in his home in La Push. Sue had been at work, like always, and Seth had been visiting Junior up in Neah Bay. Leah had been in her bedroom, but she was blasting her music—some CD that Emily had bought her for her birthday. Emily had been so convinced Leah would love it, but so far, it did nothing for her.

As she lay in her bed, she took out one earbud. "Hey, Dad," she called, "can you get me some orange juice, please?"

She got no response. She called Harry's name about four more times, becoming annoyed, before hoisting herself out of bed, getting her crutches, and making her way to the kitchen after passing through the living room. But when she got to the living room, she saw her father unconscious on the floor.

Leah hobbled over to the landline in the kitchen as quick as she could and dialed 911, but when the police and EMTs arrived at her house, it was far too late. It hurt the chief of police and Harry's best friend, Charlie Swan, almost as much as it hurt Leah to discover that Harry Clearwater was gone.

After losing the stability her father, Leah lost some of her own stability. She had always hated what the people around her had become when things had initially gone downhill, but the change she made after the death of her father was incomparable. Her once tolerable bitterness turned into a mean, scary edge that drove everyone away and pushed her into a dark, ugly, cold silence. She was tired of feeling hurt and beaten-down and betrayed; now she just decided to not feel at all, making her completely heartless.

It was the worst thing she could have done to herself.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Next chapter's not going to be sad. I. Promise. You. So, thoughts? I'd love to hear them. Also, I think I'm going to update this Mondays and Fridays._

 _HS_


	8. VIII

_**A/N:**_ _I lied. I think I want to update this Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. It's just that I have so much of this written already. Also, I own no part of Twilight. Enjoy._

 **VIII.**

 _i'm real and i don't feel like boys_

* * *

The Sunday before the first day of her senior year, Leah took the earliest bus to Neah Bay. She had just been dropped off at the bus stop when she realized she hadn't even called her cousin to let her know she was coming. Hopefully, she wouldn't be at work.

Leah knocked on the Youngs' front door, and Emily answered it. Her parents were home, so Leah politely said hi and trailed behind Emily upstairs.

Emily had just graduated from Forks High School last spring. Her senior year hadn't been as hellish as its predecessors. She still hadn't done anything about her depression, but she had constantly convinced Leah that she was okay, which was true—for one thing, she wasn't physically hurting herself anymore. She often got the impulse, but it went away when she distracted herself.

Emily would be taking a gap year before moving on to college. She needed the time to work on herself and write her novel and play the cello. _Self-help shit_ , she liked to say. While holding a part-time, flexible job at a diner on the Makah reservation, Emily would finally be able to do what she wanted, and she'd be mentally taking care of herself. Her parents were against her choices, but they didn't know much about her or her depression, anyway. They didn't have the first clue about her.

"How's it going, senior?" Emily asked Leah as they went to her bedroom. She sat on the floor to resume painting her toenails lime green, and Leah sat in the swiveling chair at Emily's desk, slowly swaying.

"Finally off crutches," Leah replied.

"I see. How was the trip up here?"

"It was fine. I can actually walk now—like, really walk. It feels good."

"Can you still play?"

Leah sighed. "I haven't really tried, and I'm not going to UPenn, anyway, even though my grades have been fucking immaculate. I don't even know if I'm gonna play for the school team this season."

"Aren't you the best in the program?" Emily asked, still staring down at her toes. "Don't they need you?"

"They didn't have me last year and they were okay."

Emily looked up at Leah with raised eyebrows. "We both know damn well they would have made it to the championships again if you were with them."

Leah shrugged, as heartless and indifferent as usual. "Maybe. I bet they've already found my replacement."

"Whatever, then."

Leah really wished her cousin wasn't so passive. She wanted to pick a fight just so Emily could reassure her and tell her she was amazing, but Emily was too real and too chill and she had her priorities straight. Leah was too aggressive for her own good and especially passive-aggressive these days. If they weren't related, Emily might just hate her.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, and it drove Leah crazy. Silence was scary. It allowed the other person to consider what she had said and decide something new about her, but Leah didn't want them to think; she wanted to prove herself to the other person. Make up their mind for them. Leah's bitterness and attention-seeking disposition hung in the air, and even though she knew Emily would always love her, it bothered her nonetheless.

Leah played with her hair in the silence. It had gotten so long—it was down to her butt now. She had never cut in a day in her life. Maybe she ought to. She ought to cut the bullshit out of her life, too.

"Hey, Em," she said. "Do you have a good pair of scissors?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I'm gonna cut off my hair."

"Your hair's gorgeous, though," Emily countered. "Why?"

"It's getting in the way, and I need to do something new."

Emily got up and carefully walked to a drawer near her desk. She took out a sharp pair of scissors and started walking to the bathroom. Leah followed.

When Emily shut the door, Leah asked for the scissors. "I wanna do it myself," she said.

"If it gets fucked up," Emily said, "you can't blame me."

"It's whatever," Leah replied. "I'm not that attached, anyway." For the longest time, she hadn't been attached to anything. She'd remained entirely heartless.

Leah brought one section of her hair down to her collarbones and started snipping away. She did that until all of her hair was the same length. Her long waves were now scattered along the floor and she was left with a blunt cut. She looked just as hard as she felt.

"It looks really different," Emily murmured.

"Good."

* * *

Senior carried on like everything else did. Leah found herself lonelier than ever without Emily around as much. She was merely blue. Just blue. She had an on/off thing going on with Kim, but it was mostly off. Kim had bigger, better things to be focused on. She was officially the cheer captain, and her biggest worry was where she wanted to go to college. Leah resented her for it because deep down, she knew Kim wasn't as smart as her. Kim's parents just had more money. And knowing Kim and her stress coping mechanisms, she would end up freaking out over the options of college and end up not going anywhere at all. It would all be really difficult for Leah to watch.

Kim and Jared never stopped being the American dream, a vision in red and white and blue. Jared got into the University of Washington on a sports scholarship like everyone hoped he would, and he loved to rub it in Leah's face just by existing. He annoyed her more and more each passing day.

Jared was the new savior of the badlands—he set a good example even though everyone knew he liked to party on the weekends. He partied a little too much for Kim's taste, and she wasn't into the crowd that he ran with, so she mostly stayed home with her cheer girls and got a little crazy in her own way, which was much more tasteful. With time, Kim had learned that there was nothing on this planet that was sadder than popping pills at home. Every now and then, she reflected on her sixteenth birthday when she had gotten very high and very alone. Lonely parties were ugly and embarrassing. Now she did it with her cheer girls since she was over being sad over Jared. Ecstasy was very much a cheer thing, but Kim knew how to keep it under control because she wasn't an idiot. Jared didn't know how to stop partying, and weed was the guy's best friend, but he didn't care anymore. He was already in U-Dub.

On a Friday in early March, two months before Prom, Kim approached Jared during study hall. She knew he hated talking to her about personal, uglier things during school where other people could hear, but she was getting past caring what people thought of them. An image was only an image, and high school wasn't a big deal. Maybe it was for him, since she could easily see him peaking in high school like most other small town boys, but complacently standing behind him wouldn't work for her anymore. And it was March—they were cutting their Prom arrangements very, very close.

She sat next to him in the quiet classroom instead of with Ashley Newton, one of her cheer girls. He was sitting with one of his friends, a football player whose name she couldn't remember. Kim gave him a silent yet obvious cue to move, and the kid complied. Kim had that sort of power.

"Hey," she said, "are we still going to Prom?"

"I don't know," he replied. "Do you wanna go?"

"I'd really like to."

"Why? There isn't even a Prom king or queen. That's only for Homecoming."

"Prom royalty doesn't matter to me," she said, "but this is our last Prom. We're seniors, Jared."

"I'll think about it," he told her.

"You have 'til Monday."

On Monday during study hall, Jared told Kim that he didn't want to go to Prom. He hadn't specifically said he didn't want to go to Prom with _her_ , but it hurt just as much. At first it only hurt her pride—because as much as she knew she didn't want to peak in high school, she still cared about her image—but then it started to hurt her feelings. She did have some feelings for Jared. They had been dating for over two years; how could he just give it up now? She was still saving herself for him since Homecoming hadn't worked out a couple years back, and he had thrown her away like garbage—again. It was only worse this time because they were about to graduate.

But she was better than that. She was fucking independent as hell. Why should she ever reward him with the benefit of hurting her feelings just because he was human garbage and she was radiant? She would never.

She had too much damn pride for that.

* * *

"And then he was like, 'I don't wanna go. Sorry.' How pathetic is that?"

" _God._ He really is a piece of work."

"I was thinking more along the lines of 'piece of shit.'"

"That, too. Definitely."

Kim wasn't that close with Leah anymore, but she was closer with Ashley Newton more than ever these days. Ashley was the twin sister of Mike Newton. She was mostly referred to as Mike's sister, but Kim always knew she was more than that. They had both joined cheer together at the end of freshman year, and besides the fact that they both enjoyed the sport, they stayed in it for each other whether they knew it or not.

Even as high school cheer was over, they weren't. Kim thought about that a lot—especially now as she stared down at her nice brown boots against the dark green, slightly damp grass of Ashley's backyard. They sat on Ashley's deck. It was the first day of spring, and for Forks, it truly felt like it.

Kim looked up at Ashley. She had always thought she was gorgeous.

Ashley was a conventionally pretty white girl with dark blonde hair, hazel eyes, a slight gap between her two front teeth, and really fantastic eyebrows. In her natural setting, she loved to wear her tattoo choker paired with a denim jacket or a black skirt. She wore these scuffed-up, beaten-down, beautiful combat boots almost everyday since she had gotten them at the beginning of sophomore year. These days, she was experimenting with a fake septum piercing, too. Her style was really alternative, but Kim liked it because she would dress the same way if she were a little braver and a little less afraid of what others would say. Ashley wished she wasn't afraid of anything. She was funny in a really quiet way and completely encouraging towards the other cheerleaders—especially Kim—and she wasn't the smartest person in the world, but neither was Kim. All they knew was that they had each other's back.

Ashley was so much more than Mike's sister. And besides—Mike was a dick.

"You should still go to Prom," Ashley mused, running a hand through her hair and then setting her hand down on the deck. It touched Kim's, but neither of them moved. They were comfortable.

"Are you going?" Kim asked.

Ashley shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know."

"You're too cute not to go."

"I could say the same for you."

"But we both know that's not true, Ash."

"Fine. We're both too cute."

"Fine," Kim said. "I agree. But _you_ should go. I bet a thousand boys are falling over themselves to go with you."

Ashley shook her head. "Fuck 'em."

"Why?"

"I don't feel like boys."

When Kim thought about it, neither did she.

* * *

Kim and Ashley spent more and more time after that. They played after school like kids, always sitting in her backyard and talking. They talked about dreams and whatever else they wanted. Cheesy shit like that.

"I wish we lived in California," Ashley said as she laid on a blanket with Kim in her backyard. Their heads were almost together, with the rest of their bodies going opposite ways. The contrast of Kim's black hair and Ashley's blonde hair came together.

"I wish we could go to a swimming pool in California on a nice, hot day," Kim said. "Like, real hot. Not just hot for here."

"That sounds good." Ashley looked up. "You ever been to California?"

"No. You?"

"I wish. Sometimes I think I'd really fit in there. I think you'd fit in there, too."

"People from there always think they're special," Kim said. "I bet there's something in the water."

"Maybe they _are_ special," Ashley said. "Maybe we're special, too."

"Maybe."

The thing about Ashley, though, was that Kim had been in her presence for years. She'd seen Ashley almost-naked of a couple dozen times, and had probably gotten high with her at some point but had been too high to notice. Ashley was just Ashley, but she had never thought she'd mean so much more by the end of high school. Maybe that was what mattered: not where they started, but where they ended up instead.

The air between them was still.

 _You don't feel like boys, but I feel like you._

"Ash?"

"Yeah?"

"You're my girl."

"Kim, you're my girl. For life. And I mean it."

"I mean it, too."

They laid there until Mike caught a glance of them through his window and called Ashley inside the house. He started to yell about something, but Kim didn't want to hear the rest of it. She quickly packed up her bag and left, her skin burning with embarrassment and something else she couldn't pinpoint exactly.

* * *

She tried to ignore Ashley after that, but it didn't work. Every time she saw her face or heard her name, she knew she had to do something. She had to. Kim didn't feel like boys, but she didn't feel like anybody but Ashley, either.

It was the Thursday of spring break when they finally hung out again. It had been a quiet week—abnormally warm for April—and Thursday was the hottest day yet. Real hot—not just hot for Forks.

Kim and Ashley both wore shorts and tank tops (and the latter girl wore her tattoo choker) as they sat on their deck. Mike was supposed to be at work, and so were his and Ashley's parents. They were alone, and the air was still.

Even though Ashley had claimed she didn't feel like boys, she had just gotten her heard broken by one.

Kim knew the feeling all too well.

"I'm tired of them," Ashley said. "I don't want anything to do with them."

"I used to tell myself that all the time."

"Then why do we keep going back, Kim?"

"Because we believe in people's ability to change, Ash," she said, her thumb rubbing against the back of the other girl's hand. "We want people to change so bad that we imagine they do when they really don't. We're too forgiving."

Ashley nodded, and then bit her bottom lip. "You are such a nice girl," she told Kim. "And that's what's gonna get you hurt. I promise."

Kim nodded in response. "I know," she said. (No, she didn't.)

Ashley tucked some strands of blonde hair behind her ear and rested her head upon Kim's shoulder. They just breathed in, breathed out.

Kim thought she had ended up in the right place, and she was almost fully convinced of that until she felt her hair pulled hard and rough, and she was flying off the deck. Her body landed in the grass, and her head landed against some rocks by the garden. They scraped her forehead—hard. She blinked, trying to process what had just happened.

Mike then grabbed Ashley by the strap of her tank top and started screaming at her. When Kim focused, she could see the spit flying.

"What the _fuck_ do you think you're doing?" he demanded. "What's with all this dyke shit, Ash? _Again?_ "

He slapped her hard across her pretty face. "Is this what you wanna be?" he yelled. "A fucking _lesbo_? You're not my real sister." He slapped her again. "What the fuck did I tell you about th—?"

He never got to finish his statement because Kim kicked him so hard in the head that he blacked out. While he was down, she started to beat him all that she could, pounding on his face with heavy, tight fists and shoving her heels into his stomach. Tears streamed down her face as she screamed down at his unconscious body.

"Fuck you!" she yelled over and over. "Fuck you, you fucking bastard!"

Ashley had to pull her back with both arms. "It's over," she kept saying. "Kim, it's over."

Kim finally calmed down and turned and held Ashley's face with both hands, carefully rubbing at the red in the girl's cheeks without even noticing the fact that she was wounded herself. Kim's face crumpled up and more tears flowed from her eyes.

Ashley ran her thumb along Kim's cut eyebrow, and then her bleeding jaw, the dark blood smearing everywhere. "It's okay," she whispered. "We're okay."

Kim turned away without looking back. She tried to burn the day out of her memory as she drove home, all the way out to the sticks, but as she walked the distance between her car and her front door, the wounds burned more than anything else.

* * *

Kim didn't feel like boys, and she wasn't sure if she still felt like Ashley.

She just felt like finishing high school the right way: with Prom. It didn't matter where she started as much as where she ended up, after all.

The Monday before Prom, after her wounds from spring break had been long healed (she had lied about kicking Mike's ass; he appreciated the gesture), Kim drove out to the gas station on the edge of Forks. A year ago, it had been remodeled to this century, and it was still a riot. The white kids from her school loved to hang out there because they were too hard to stay at home but too soft to be doing hard drugs. The gas station was a nice medium. Kim got in and out easily enough, and she was soon on her way to Leah's with bags of absolute comfort in her hands. Leah, as a person, inspired comfort despite her attitude.

Kim parked in the Clearwaters' driveway and went up the steps to the front door. She knocked on the door, and Leah opened it.

Before Leah could say anything, Kim asked, "Do you still have _Selena_ on VHS?"

* * *

Leah got up from the ground when she was finished pushing the tape into her VCR. When she turned around, Kim had all the snacks laid out on the couch. It was their classic menu: Doritos, Coca-Cola, and Snickers.

"Damn, Bambi," Leah said. "You trying to make me fat or something?"

Kim smiled. "Nah. Sit down."

They were about halfway into the movie when Leah turned to Kim with serious eyes and said, "Okay, what's going on? We haven't done this since we were freshmen."

"Nothing's going on," Kim said curtly, with her eyes still on the TV. "Where's your mom?"

"She's at work," Leah replied. "Now tell me what's going on. Is Jared making you feel inadequate again?"

"Actually, no." Kim turned to Leah. She sighed. "I wanted to ask if you'd go to Prom with me."

"So Jared's definitely making you feel inadequate again," Leah confirmed. "Why don't you just tell him to stop being a little bitch and go with you? You guys have a look to keep up, anyway."

"I don't even wanna go with him," Kim admitted, not sure if she was telling the truth or if she was trying to seek safety in Leah to avoid feeling like a loser. "I'd much rather go with my best friend." _Especially since I've been turned down once and can't look Ashley in the eye ever again._

"Right," Leah said with a roll of her eyes. "You weren't saying that when you and him were getting along for the past couple years." She pursed her lips. "Actually, you were hardly saying anything to me then."

Kim was silent for a moment. She inhaled deeply through her nose. "It's cool, I guess," she finally said, letting the conversation die.

"And that's kinda gay, anyway," Leah added. "I'm not into girls, and hopefully you aren't, either. Why don't you just take one of Jared's friends?"

"It doesn't even matter," Kim said, gritting her teeth.

Leah wasn't done yet, though. "Kim, you can't be doing shit like that just because Jared's making you feel bad about yourself. You're way better than that, and you're way better than him, too. Don't use me because you're mad at him—I'm not your rebound for that shit anymore. We're about to graduate. It's time to grow up."

Kim got up from the couch, grabbed her things, and started making her way to the front door. She slammed the door behind her as she departed.

"Bye!" Leah yelled, looking for the last word as always.

* * *

That night, Leah didn't know how to feel after being such an asshole to Kim. She didn't want to feel bad because Kim deserved it and she should have known better than to try to fuck with Leah's feelings for the sake of her own, but Leah did want to feel bad because Kim could have actually been sincere. Kim wasn't a malicious person in the least bit, and for Leah to assume that just because she had been having a bad time was fucking rude.

Not everyone was out to get Leah anymore; the world was pretty much done fucking with her. But she just couldn't shake it. Leah felt that with every step she took forward, something horrible would happen. After distancing herself and become as tough as nails since her world turned blue at the departure of Paul and her dreams, she didn't know how to handling signs of genuine interest anymore—how fucking pathetic was that? Shying away from growth was a new low for her.

Her mother was right: Leah had the worst fucking attitude. And the fact that she may have lost Kim because of her hard-ass disposition only made things worse.

Leah called Kim that night. She hadn't been able to eat junk food or watch _Selena_ after Kim left, so she just put it away. Seth would quickly find and consume it all, she knew.

Leah dialed the number she knew by heart, and Kim answered the phone on the second ring.

"Yeah?" Kim asked.

"I'm sorry for being such a dick to you," Leah said, cutting right to the chase.

"It's okay."

 _You are such a nice girl._

"It's really not. Like, it's not your fault I'm such a heartless asshole who can't believe anyone would actually be nice to me. You don't deserve all that, and I'm sorry."

"You're not as heartless as you say you are," Kim replied, "but it's okay. I forgive you, Lee."

 _And that's what's gonna get you hurt._

"I'm just so sorry about how rude I've been lately."

"It's cool. We're still good."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

 _I promise._

"Hey, Kim?"

"Yeah?"

"What colors are you wearing to Prom? I wanna coordinate."

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ _So I threw this chapter in because I felt the need to do something with Kim. She's important in this story. Thoughts? Also, I can't wait to show you guys the next chapter._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	9. IX

_**A/N:**_ _I don't own Twilight, which I consider myself blessed for. Also, this was proofread by Sydney (vampiregirl93). She has also created a banner for this story, which I will post on my bio shortly. Thanks so much, baby g. By the time you read this, it'll probably already be there_

 _Sorry for the update promises. I'm so bad at these things once I start making promises. Will I ever learn? (No, lol.)_

 _Enjoy the chapter! It's not that sad, for a change._

 **IX.**

 _i'm dancing in the darkness_  
 _three years before i was feeling so heartless_

* * *

Leah and Kim entered the doors of Forks High School's gym with linked arms. Kim's dress was white and cut in a mermaid style with gems at the waist, and clearly cost the most out of any other girl's dress. Leah's dress was also white but more simplistic, as it was flowing and had an asymmetrical cut to it, similar to the dresses of all the other girls. Whichever way, Leah and Kim looked like a dream.

This year's Prom theme was A Night Under the Stars, and the gymnasium had been decorated to suit that—somehow. (It was Forks High School, so they couldn't do much else except try their best.) There were yellow-white balloons everywhere to represent stars, and the lights were dim. There was food, and even the music was good. Apparently it was the best Prom that Forks High had put on in years, so Leah found herself as impressed as everyone else.

Leah and Kim danced with Kim's cheer friends, and for the time being, all was okay in Leah's world. Her world was still blue—as it had been for a while—but it was many hues of blue. She didn't feel as still and motionless as she used to.

At some point, Leah took a break to get something to drink. She went to the food table and poured herself a cup of punch before retreating to the wall to watch the festivities from a distance.

When she was little, Leah had dreamed of Prom. She had planned on going with her faceless dream boyfriend and all her friends. She had wanted to get a limo and go to dinner and dance the night away and everything, surrounded by the group of people who she had once loved the most. Her perfect image of Prom was something out of a coming-of-age movie, with a hip soundtrack and slow-motion shots of everyone dancing and smiling.

Tonight, she didn't recognize anyone from her old life. She thought she saw Jacob (how could she miss him? He was six-foot-six and as skinny as a pole) in the corner of the gym, dancing a foot across from a skinny white girl with brown hair and two left feet, typically. Leah wanted to approach him, but he had a broken mind, and she would only feel stupid by talking to him.

Leah scanned the dance floor, looking for things of the past, and spotted Kim kissing Ashley Newton, one of her cheer friends, on the mouth. _Called it._ Then she definitely knew that nobody of her past life was here anymore. The badlands had consumed everyone and all that was left were the outlines of the people she had once known and her memories.

Amidst all the dancing and smiles and stolen kisses—amidst all the teenage dreams that were hers but didn't belong to her anymore—Leah finally understood all of it.

 _This is it,_ she thought. _The pinnacle of high school. You find your people, and then you lose them just as easily. Nothing lasts forever._

Sulking against the wall in the darkness, Leah sipped at her punch until the plastic cup was empty. She felt a world of melancholia hanging over her head and she couldn't help but think, _Is this how Emily feels?_

She watched her generation indulge upon itself, and she wondered if she could ever belong to it again. She was so far away from what was expected. The way her world was painted blue, she couldn't bet on ever finding her place again.

"Pretty dumb, huh?"

Leah turned to her left, and she almost cried on sight.

Paul Lahote took a drink from his plastic cup of punch and smiled at her with the mischievous grin she had come to love over the years. "Hey, Lee-Lee."

Her empty cup fell to the ground when she wrapped her arms around him, embracing him to the best of her ability so she could be positive that he was back, that he was _real_. He felt just as warm and human as he had the last time. Suddenly, her world was red again and the retrograde was over.

"What are you—?" she began, searching for answers.

He laced her hand in his and started walking. "Follow me."

Paul led Leah into the darkness of the dance floor and started dancing to the upbeat song. No matter how upset Leah could possibly become with Paul, she did admire one thing about him: his ability to dance. Leah forgot that he could dance really well—it was almost hard to keep up. He spun her round and round, throwing in the occasional dip, and a smile never left her face. They were timeless.

"I missed you," she told him over the loud music.

"I missed you, too," he said simply.

Even though they were surrounded by people that neither of them knew, they were okay. They didn't need anybody because they had each other, and Leah didn't have to pretend it was that way anymore because it was true.

Leah and Paul danced to three more fast songs before she told him she had to go to the bathroom.

He nodded. "Okay. I'll wait."

Leah let go of him and started walking, but then she stopped herself and turned around. "You know where the bathroom is, right?" she asked. He was only a few steps behind her, clearly following her.

"Yeah," he said. "I went to school here, remember? I was just gonna ask if you wanted me to wait for you right outside."

"Oh. Duh. Yeah." The second he had returned into her life was the second her brain had departed, it seemed.

She turned back around and started to leave the dance floor again.

Leah hadn't been searching for her, but when she spotted Kim on her way to the bathroom as well, some relief swept over her.

"Kim!" she called to her.

Kim turned around and Leah hurried to latch onto her arm, forcefully pulling her into the bathroom.

Paul, clad in a white dress shirt, black slacks, and a gray tie, chuckled and leaned against the wall outside of the bathroom with his hands in his pockets.

Leah and Kim stood next to the door, out of the way of the multitudes of girls fixing their hair and makeup.

"What's going on?" Kim asked Leah. Before Leah could respond, Kim then added, "Wait, was that _Paul_ out there?"

Leah nodded excitedly. "Yeah. He's back. I can't even fucking believe it." _And neither can my heart._

"Well, what's going on?" Kim asked again. "Because you didn't have to pull me into the bathroom like you're crazy to tell me that."

"Okay," Leah said, trying to organize her frantic thoughts. "If I don't go to your place tonight, please don't be mad."

"I won't be mad," Kim assured her, "but why wouldn't you come over?" Then she caught herself. Her round, pink lips formed an _o._ "Oh, I see."

Leah nodded again. "Yeah."

"What are you doing in here hiding from him, then?"

"I—I don't even know."

"You could be out there getting it right now," Kim said.

"Kim, my head is _spinning_. This is just all so much, all at once."

"It really is. Well, do you know if you're gonna go soon?"

"I don't even know," Leah said again. "I think I'm just assuming things, but he hasn't been answering my questions. All we've done is danced."

"If it comes down to it," Kim said, "I'll tell my mom you went to Emily's place. And your mom won't ask, but if she does, you're still at Emily's."

"Thanks, girl," Leah said.

"It's no problem. Just be safe, okay?"

"Mm-hm."

"And meanwhile, I'll be doing extra-virginal things for compensation."

 _As if you're not gonna pop pills and make out with your cheer friends the second Prom is over._ Leah grinned. "Thanks."

Kim gave a fierce smile. "Now go get him."

* * *

With interlaced fingers, Leah and Paul returned to the dance floor.

Even as she was already five-foot-eight and would remain that height for the rest of her days, she couldn't help but notice how much taller he had gotten. When he'd left, he had been her height, and now he had to have been at least six-foot-one. And everything else about him had grown up. His jaw was more defined, and his body was less lanky. He had some stubble growing along his chin, which made him look a lot older, too, but when she looked in his deep brown eyes, she saw a glint of the same kid she had grown up with. The same kid whose bicycle handlebars she used to ride up and down the rez, and the same kid whose arm she would lean on when they took long bus trips to Port Angeles to catch a movie.

The retrograde was over, and life was moving on as it should despite the changes.

They danced to a slower song with a pulsating bass line. Leah didn't know the song, but she made a mental note to listen to it again when she returned to Earth. For now, she was going to brave.

Close and tight, Paul whispered sweet nothings into Leah's ears, and she giggled into his neck when she wasn't being brave and peppering soft kisses on it.

"I missed you, Leah," he told her. "And I love you. God, I love you."

And with that, she truly thought she was going to melt into a puddle at his feet. There was no room for questions, for doubts, or for uncertainties.

"I missed you, too, Paul," she said. "More than you would ever fucking believe. And I love you—I love you so much."

"C'mere." His voice was rough, but his kisses were soft and sweet upon her lips. Painfully slow, too.

Leah had kissed Tom Anderson a thousand times, but none of them had felt like Paul. Paul Lahote knew how to kiss. He knew how to _love_. The fact that he did it well made all the difference between him and any other boy Leah had known.

She moaned against Paul's lips, and he couldn't hear it, but he felt it.

"I've got a hotel room in town," he said.

"Yeah?"

"Wanna get out of here?"

"There's nothing I'd rather do."

* * *

Paul now drove an amazing, peculiar lemon of a pimp mobile that he liked to call a car. Clanks and shitty brakes and all, it got him and Leah to the hotel he was staying at for the weekend, in downtown Forks. She wanted to ask him when he'd move back to La Push, but she didn't. With Paul, she always tried to focus on the _now._

Upon entering the hotel room, shutting the door, and flicking on the light, Leah stepped out of her sandals and Paul put his hands on her back, unzipping her white dress as he kissed her. She put her hands in his soft hair with not much to grab. She could tell he had gotten a fresh haircut.

Paul eagerly tugged down her dress, letting it fall to her ankles. She stepped out of the pile of clothes and continued to hold him as they walked backwards to the bed. She sat down and he remained standing up as he started to undo his tie.

She scooted back against the headboard and laid on her back with her left leg crossed over her right. She watched Paul undress before her, and his eyes didn't leave her body; he took in all of her. Her white bra and panties only made her tan skin glow even more, and her body was a masterpiece. Her soft curves were more beautiful than anything he'd ever seen. The only thing he could think about was where he would put his mouth first once he got her naked.

She tensed up when she caught a glimpse of his abs after he unbuttoned and took off his shirt. Paul had definitely grown up—there was no denying it. His muscles rippled as he undid his belt buckle and slowly tugged down his pants. He was in nothing but his gray boxers, and she liked the view, but she couldn't shake the fact that she was just so nervous.

She looked down at her brown thighs, and then brought her gaze up to look up at him again, and all he did was ask, "What're your legs crossed for?"

She uncrossed and widened her legs, and he confidently found his place between them as he kissed her neck. He ran his hands through her hair, which ended just past her collarbones. She shivered when his fingertips ran along her jaw.

"You cut your hair," he observed.

"I did."

"I like it."

His fingers traced down her body as hers remained timidly in his hair, and she shivered as his mouth moved from her throat to her chest. He moved awfully slow and her toes curled against the comforter the closer he got to her breasts.

They didn't break the gaze they had for each other as she stopped thinking and finally took off her bra. She didn't know why she had taken so long—it made her feel kind of stupid. What was she so afraid of?

He took her in, kissing at her breasts as she tried to stay calm, but she couldn't feel herself opening up just yet. Leah was surrounded entirely by Paul, and everything was red with him, so she didn't have a choice. It wasn't that she didn't want him, but she wanted to know him and know that he was truly real and this wasn't some dream.

At the same time, she was afraid to discover the changes. She didn't need to know and she wasn't sure if she wanted to know anymore, even if it would be right.

He said to _be cool_. The nerve.

"I don't know how yet," she said.

He stopped kissing her and looked up with wide eyes. "Are you a virgin?"

She shook her head. "No. You?"

"Nope."

"So why does it matter?" she wondered.

"It matters because your nerves are going through the roof, Lee."

She sat up against the headboard and he followed her. In the dim light of the hotel room, she could see him perfectly. He was almost the same, but it was the _almost_ aspect that killed her more than anything.

"I feel like I don't even know you anymore," she admitted.

He smirked, and she was fully convinced he was the same person he had been so long ago. "You know me better than anybody."

Leah folded in on herself, bringing her arms close to cover her bare breasts, which didn't really help. "You're not doing me any favors smirking at me like that," she told Paul. "How do I know you're being real?"

His face was serious. "If I don't know anything else, I know that I love you, Leah," he told her. Then he ran his tongue over his lip slowly, thoughtfully. He bit his lip and the way he released it made her want to forget how peculiar their situation was. Everything about him oozed sexy. It was almost too much, so she looked down.

He put his finger underneath her chin and gently brought her gaze up. "And that's the truth," he added.

When she peeked into his eyes, she got a glimpse of his soul. He was crazy, but he wasn't lying. His love for her was real. It was true and it was real and she didn't feel the need to worry anymore.

He took her soft hands and laced them to his rough ones. Her thumb traced the scar on the back of his hand, where his father had cut him with a broken beer bottle. She remembered that night, one of many nights, when Paul had ran to her house and sought safety in her because he loved her and he trusted her.

He was as real now as he had been back then. If she didn't know anything else, she knew that.

She felt tears well up in her eyes and she shut them tight. It was the first sense of non-angry emotion she had felt in a long time. _Angry girl_ used to be all she was, but now she knew she was capable of more. Her lip quivered and he closed the space between them to kiss her. Her bare torso pressed against his, and her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him in closer and locking him in just like she always wanted. She wished she could lock him up inside her heart forever, but this was a good alternative. For now.

Everything but his lips was hard against her, and she unlaced one of her hands to touch him, which practically stung him. He shifted and freed both of his hands to explore her body in ways that nobody had before—she had been so undiscovered before him.

Leah laid back down onto the bed and he resumed, moving his lips down to her breasts while his hands stayed busy. Her body shifted and flexed with every move he made, responding accordingly. She whimpered whenever he touched her just the right way. She couldn't afford to be cool anymore. How could she ever remain calm in the presence of someone as luminescent as Paul?

He moved his mouth further down her body with his fingers carefully placed on her inner thighs. He looked up to see a work of art. Leah Clearwater was just too damn beautiful and she was _his_. The best thing about it was that he was hers, too. Finally.

Together, they didn't have to worry about pretenses or secrets used to hide their emotions.

They were as real as can be.

* * *

Alone, Leah felt her emptiest at two in the morning. With Paul, she didn't feel devoid in the least bit. Full and awake, she created shapes against the planes of his stomach and chest with her finger, focused on everything and nothing. He played with her unruly brown hair and nothing was wrong. Nothing hurt and she didn't feel blue anymore. Everything in her world was a beautiful lilac.

When they breathed together, Leah could feel herself truly breathing for the first time in a long time.

She didn't have to worry anymore.

She didn't have to worry about him coming to school with bruises, and she didn't have to worry about him never coming home at all. She didn't have to live in the fear of worrying about him anymore because she knew now that he was okay. He hadn't told her, but she just knew it. He didn't have as many bruises or dark circles under his eyes like he used to. Paul being okay made Leah okay, too.

"I need a cigarette," was what he told her that morning.

"So you smoke now?"

He started to get up and she followed. He reached into a box on the floor and then made his way to the bathroom and turned on the shower, closing the door behind him.

"And you're gonna take a shower," she murmured. "I don't get you, Paul."

He closed the shower curtain and sat on bathroom counter. She sat on the edge of the tub, feeling the heat from the shower against her bare back.

Paul took out two cigarettes and handed Leah one of them. Mindlessly, she stuck it in her mouth like she had smoked before—like, _really_ smoked, not just when she was feeling edgy with Emily back when they were twelve and ended up burning their fingertips—and he lit it like a pro with his lighter.

"The shower's on so the smoke alarm doesn't go off," he explained. "The room's not ventilated well, so the steam in here carries the smoke off."

He relaxed on the counter, leaning his head back against the mirror as he smoked. Once she got past the embarrassing coughing part, she could relax, too. The two of them, completely naked, smoked in near-silence as the shower continued to run.

Leah gazed up at Paul as he tilted his head back and let the smoke slowly swirl out of his mouth. She was captivated by his every move. Everything around her was Paul, just as it ought to be. He was a living, breathing, smoking image of pure film noir. It was his essence that dizzied her, not the smoke or the steam. Either that or she was starving. She felt that more prominently.

"I'm hungry," she said.

He nodded. "Me, too," he replied. "Coffee shop?"

She nodded back.

"Let's roll out," he told her.

* * *

Paul took her out to Port Angeles, and Leah appreciated the gesture. She didn't want to be anywhere near the sharks in the central part of the badlands. She didn't want to share Paul; she wanted his presence to be undiscovered with the exception of her own knowledge because he was too damn special and he was _hers._ Everything on him was _Leah, Leah, Leah._

Even though it wasn't as much of a coffee shop as it was a diner, Port Angeles' very best was still open when Leah and Paul walked in. The place never closed, but Leah hadn't known that. Prior to experiencing Paul in every aspect, it was like she hadn't known anything.

Leah, wearing her Prom dress under his leather jacket, slid into a booth seat and Paul slid in right next to her, wearing what he had worn to Prom (minus the tie). Leaning in and putting her hand on his cheek, she kissed his jawline, as light as a feather.

"What are you gonna get?" Paul wondered.

She kept her mouth on his jaw. "Probably pancakes. And grits."

He laughed an airy chuckle. "Okay, we _both_ know that we can't get decent grits around here."

"You'd be surprised," she said with pursed lips.

"Are you trying to tell me that Forks knows something about some grits?"

She wiggled her eyebrows. "I guess we'll have to wait and see."

* * *

"So where have you been?" Leah asked Paul as soon as the waitress set their plates down.

"Everywhere and nowhere," Paul told her.

She began to pour maple syrup all over her plate. "Quit playing with me. You're not that deep."

"I lived in Sequim, back when I was in juvie," Paul said as he took a bite of bacon. "That lasted about a month. They got me treatment for my anger and ADHD, like with therapy and meds. I'm a lot better now. Then I went to Tacoma to live with my mom. Got an assload of family over there."

"Well, you know Mexicans," Leah interjected.

"You already know."

"Brush up on your Spanish a little?"

He smiled. " _Sí_."

"What'd you do in Tacoma?"

"Finished high school my junior year. Couldn't stand the assholes there. You know how people like to joke that La Push is ghetto? It ain't. Tacoma is the real shit, especially where I was. I busted my ass so I could get my credits and get outta that bitch-ass school with those bitch-ass people as soon as possible. I also spent a little time in California during the summers. My mom sent me to see more family in Santa Ana."

He could be ambitious when he had to be. "Then why didn't you ever visit here on your own?" she asked. _Not like I've been here the entire time or anything._

"I was broke as a joke," he said.

"I would've helped."

"You're broke as a joke, too."

"I still would've helped."

"I'm not supposed to be seeing my dad," he added. "I'm not supposed to be anywhere near him, either."

"Oh."

"I'm not so broke now, though," he said casually as he put ketchup all over his scrambled eggs. Leah thought it was disgusting.

"How so?"

"Been getting business all over the place."

" _Please_ don't tell me that shit," she said, shaking her head. "'Cause that's the same stupid shit Quil was doing and then he disappeared."

"Nah, not like that. Not drugs. More like cars."

"Like that's better. You're fucking crazy."

He smirked. "You like your guys insane."

"You could say that."

"You're paying for those grits," Leah said, pointing out the untouched bowl on the table. "You should at least try them first."

"We should go at the same time," he replied.

She smiled devilishly. "You scared?"

"Are you?"

They picked up their spoons and each put a small amount of grits on them. After counting down from three, they tried the food at the same time. The grits were as atrocious as Paul expected them to be. He chewed slowly, trying not to spit them out. Leah remained mostly mature and wrinkled her nose as she swallowed.

"Sorry about that," she told him.

"It's cool," Paul said. "Not all of us are blessed with good taste."

"I guess that explains why I'm so into you, right?" Leah asked playfully. Paul was just her taste.

"You could say that."

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ _You guys will probably hate me for the next chapter, but this one was cute, right? I need to work on my fluff, though. This was crazy-hard to write. It's easier to write breakups... or someone dying. Or something._

 _Feedback is always appreciated. And I love my trusty three readers who like to review, but where are the rest of y'all?_

 _Best,_

 _HS_


	10. X

_**A/N:**_ _I own no part of Twilight. Sydney has proofread this. (Thanks, sis.) Rolling on to the next chapter. It's short but concise. Also, we've hardly put a dent in this story. There's still a loooooooooooooooooong way to go. Like, that long._

 _Enjoy!_

 **X.**

 _you were red and you liked me 'cause I was blue_  
 _you touched me and suddenly I was a lilac sky_  
 _and you decided purple just wasn't for you_

* * *

The trip back to Forks was quiet except for their syncopated heartbeats. That was what Leah focused on as they drove through the trees, reentering the badlands. With Paul, it was so easy to think they were in a movie; he exhibited that a timeless attitude that was impossible to mimic. He was eternal in her love-tinted eyes, but not even his shiny brown eyes could force her to forget the reality that she had to live in. She would try just as hard, though. He made her so optimistic that it was to the point of bullshit.

Dawn was just breaking when they ended up back in their hotel room, not quite back down to Earth. He sat in the bed, and she straddled him immediately, fueled by bravery and desire.

He said to _be cool._

"I'm already coolest," she said before leaning in to kiss him.

He brought her dress up and placed his hands on her backside, bringing her in closer. He didn't engulf her anymore; now there was an equal mix of the two of them. Together, her world was lavender and it was undeniably beautiful.

They were together for what felt like hours. The morning sun created patterns on his skin through the shutters as he retreated to the shower. Leah didn't follow him. She didn't do anything but lay in bed and reflect. There wasn't much to reflect on; her mind had turned brand-new at the hands of Paul.

 _How did I ever live ina world without PaulLahote? The guy's all I know now._

* * *

They would have to come back down to Earth soon, but they took as long as possible. They both showered and then shared six secrets each. Each secret belonged to the both of them and would never be repeated.

Then they took a morning nap. In Paul's arms, in the white sheets that felt like nothing but them, Leah felt like the queen of the clouds. She couldn't remember what it was like going to sleep and praying to some god that wherever he was, he was safe. Now, he couldn't be safer.

When they woke up and returned to Earth in the afternoon, Paul almost ruined everything.

He drove Leah to Kim's house, where her mom thought she had been since Prom ended. He stopped the car just at the beginning of the large driveway.

"Where are you going?" she asked him.

"I've got business to take care of," he said.

Leah gave him a chance and tried not to get too upset too fast. She wouldn't destroy her emotions this soon, and so unwarranted. Paul was always hyping himself up, though. He was so into being cool and sounding cool that he didn't even know it, and it drove her crazy.

She tried to reason with him. "Why can't I come?" she asked. "Kim's not gonna care if I don't go to her house, and I know she'll make something up for me."

"Don't wanna risk it," he said like he was trying to be nice.

"Is it dangerous?"

"It could be."

"I'll wait for you, then," she said. _As always._

He saved her heart when he told her, "Okay."

"Alright."

"I'll go by your house later," he said. "I won't be long. Trust me."

She didn't have much trust for him left. He was really good at making empty promises.

Leah was silent. She just glowered at him, trying not to get her feelings hurt.

"I love you," he told her. "Go in there and catch up with Kim. Then go home and get yourself cleaned up. I'll see you later."

"I love you, too," she said. "See ya."

He leaned in and kissed her hard, gave her the kind of kiss that left her tingly and lightheaded.

She got out of the car, waved goodbye, and made her way to Kim's house.

* * *

Leah couldn't even make it to the front door before turning around and just going home. She didn't want to see Kim right now; she didn't want to see or hear or feel anybody but Paul, and once again, he was just out of her grasp.

She tried not to get upset about it. Suppressing the pain she could easily make herself feel, she just focused on catching a bus from Forks to La Push. It took a while to get to the bus stop, but it would have taken hours if she had just walked home. She wouldn't even make it, Paul would just be dust, and her world would be in retrograde once again.

Her mother was sitting on the couch when Leah entered through the front door.

"Hey," Sue called without turning to look at Leah. She was in a lighter mood than usual. It was kind of scary. "How was Prom?"

"It was good," Leah said.

"See, I told you it'd be good. Did you and Kim have a good time?"

Leah just remembered now that Kim was a real person that she actually knew. She'd have to call her sometime soon when she recovered a little bit.

"Yeah, we had a really good time," Leah replied.

Sue finally looked over to Leah. "You look tired," she said. "And your hair's a mess. Whose jacket is that?"

Leah looked down at her sleeve, realizing that she was still wearing Paul's leather jacket.

"Oh, a friend's," she said lamely. "A bunch of us got food after Prom and it got really cold."

"I'm really glad you went, Lee," Sue said. "I'm glad you got the experience."

"Yeah," Leah said absentmindedly. "Me, too."

* * *

Leah showered again and changed into sweats before going to sleep. She had nothing to do but wait for Paul. What other way to waste time was there other than to sleep? She was starting to feel herself turn into Emily. She wished she could console in her over shit like this, but Emily was busy recovering through self-care. Leah would have to be strong and be there for herself, but her mind was still somewhere in the school gym, so recovery would have to wait.

Leah slept until twilight. She fluttered her eyes open to see the pink and orange light creep through her window blinds. It was her favorite time of day, but the scariest. So much could change in so little time.

She went into the living room to discover that the house was empty. Sue was probably at work or Billy Black's house, and Seth was likely on the other side of the planet. The kid was never around. He was sixteen now and had friends who could drive, so he thought he was hot shit.

Leah sat on her couch and looked out the window. She waited for the sound and image of a loud, rusty lemon of a car pulling into her gravel driveway. Paul had been back in her life for less than twenty-four hours and he already had her looking crazy over him. He had that kind of magnitude whether she liked it or not.

Eventually, Paul's car did pull into the driveway. Leah went out to her porch and waited for him to come out. He walked up to her porch wearing aviator sunglasses and an unfamiliar scowl.

"Hey," she said easily. "Nobody else is home, so if you wanna come in, you can."

"I'm sorry," he said in an unapologetic tone, "but I can't do that."

"We can go somewhere else, then," she said.

"Leah, I have to go."

She clenched her jaw, trying not to get upset again. "Where?"

"I gotta go back to Tacoma," he said. "California, if things get really bad. I can't be around here anymore."

"Well, I'm not gonna let you go until you take off those fucking sunglasses and have a real conversation with me."

Silently, he took them off. His left eye was red and swollen. It was like he had just been socked in the face.

Leah's mouth fell open. "Have you been around your dad?" she asked murmured.

"Lee, I gotta go."

"Have you been around your dad?" she repeated, louder. "'Cause I'll fucking kill him."

"It wasn't my dad!" he yelled. Then he lowered his voice and took a deep breath. "Look, Lee, I really gotta go now."

"You keep saying that," she said, annoyed, "but you never tell me _why_ , Paul. Cut to the fucking chase."

"It's not good for me to be around here," he told her. "Look, trouble follows me everywhere I go, and things and people are a little too close around here. It's a small-ass world, and I gotta get out of it before I get fucked up even more. I gotta get far away from here."

"Who's after you?" Leah asked. "I swear, we can get the police on it or something and we can help you and get you out of this sh—"

"I'm in too deep," he said. "It's not safe for me anymore."

"So you're just gonna go," she said with a nod. "You came back after almost three years to fuck me and tell me you love me and now you're just gonna fucking leave me like garbage."

"I'm sorry, Lee."

"You better be fucking sorry."

"Well, I am!" he shouted. "Leah, I'm fucking sorry."

"Sorry doesn't mean shit to me," she said. "I was so fucking sad because of you, and when you came along just now you changed everything. Paul, you made me forgive you for being a piece of shit by never calling or even trying to talk to me, and then you messed all that up because you're a fucking asshole. You're such an _asshole,_ you know that? I don't care if you've got problems or trouble or whatever, Paul. I don't care. You're always in trouble, and you always know how to get out of it. But you fucked up real bad this time—do you even see that, or do you just not care? You can't come into _my_ life again and change _me_ in just a day and then decide that we don't mean anything."

She was such an angry crier. Hot tears ran down her face, but she didn't care that she looked stupid. She could never look as stupid and foolish as she felt.

He was silent as he looked down at the porch.

"So here's what you're gonna do," she said. "Just so we're fucking clear, you're gonna stop being a coward and you're gonna look me in my eyes and tell me that I mean nothing to you. Tell me that all that has happened between us doesn't mean shit to you, and I'll understand."

He looked at her with his brown eyes, but all she could see was the bruise. He didn't say anything.

"I love you, Lee," he said, "but—"

"But you gotta go," she finished, nodding. "So get fucking going."

He turned around and went back to his car. She didn't give him another look as she went back into her house and slammed the front door shut. She left her heart out on the porch. Without Paul, she didn't need it anymore.

He didn't hear her, but before he left, he said, "I'll be back. I'll try."

Paul was always trying.

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ _And? Review!_

 _Best,_

 _HS_


	11. XI

**Part Two**

 **anecdoche** : a conversation in which everyone is talking, but nobody is listening.

* * *

 **XI.**

 _i've been hating everything, everything that could have been_  
 _could have been my anything, now everything's embarrassing_

* * *

The Clearwater telephone rang at seven thirty-five one Saturday evening in June. Leah held her pillow tighter over her head and rolled onto her stomach. She groaned. _Can't anyone see that I'm so preoccupied doing absolutely nothing?_

She waited for the phone to stop ringing so she could finally sleep in peace. Being the day after graduation, Leah would finally, finally, _finally_ be able to really sleep. She could have done the thing typical of kids her age in the badlands and dropped out, but she had too much pride for that. She just didn't have enough pride to really give the end of school her all. It was over, though. She had done it. The treacherous journey that was high school was finally over and now she could get a nine-to-five job and get married and have three kids and go to Disney World and live the White American Dream.

Or something.

The phone didn't stop ringing. She found herself in a tired, angry haze as she walked to her living room, and she silently cursed at Seth for not being here to answer the phone. He was never home. Then again, what could she really say? _Fuck you for having a better social life than me_?

Leah picked up the phone, not really having an idea of who was calling. Probably a bill collector. Sue had a bad habit of not paying bills on time, but it wasn't entirely her fault. Leah braced herself to listen to the phone for two seconds and then hang up.

"Come out and feel the sun." It was Kim.

Leah's tone was more sour than usual. "I have windows for that."

"You're cold as ice, Clearwater."

"You already know, Conweller."

"Oh, Leah, what's got you pissed?" Kim was really good at sounding on the verge of condescending but not condescending enough for Leah to get mad. Kim didn't know about everything that had happened between her and Paul because Leah hadn't said anything, but she had a good idea. Kim just thought that Leah should get over it, but she didn't get it. She would never get Leah and Paul and everything concerning them. Nobody would.

"I'm a high school graduate and I'd like to sleep for the first time in four years, but you're kinda interrupting that," Leah said bluntly. "Something big's gotta be going down since you're not sleeping, either. Or you're high again."

"Sleep later," Kim told her, ignoring her comment. "Come down to the beach."

Leah absentmindedly twirled the phone cord around her left wrist as she cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder. The cord could wrap around her left wrist four times. She wondered how long it would be before she cut off her own circulation.

"Hello?" Kim asked, making sure Leah was still on the line.

"Yeah?"

"You coming?"

"Wait, what's going on, again?"

"I think some people came home."

Leah unwrapped her wrist, hung up the telephone, put on her sneakers, and ran.

* * *

She ran all of the two blocks to First Beach, effectively permeating her shoes with sand, but she didn't mind. Sand-filled shoes meant the beginning of summer, the beginning of something not at all new, but just as promising, even for someone as pessimistic as her. First Beach was a beacon, though; it could bring about anything, and everything always came back.

She instantly recognized her all friends when she got there. She had to have been the last person to arrive. Kim was the first person Leah saw, and she was—naturally—with Jared, his huge arm wrapped around her. Leah wanted to ask about the girl Kim had kissed at Prom just to spite Jared, but she couldn't focus on being petty at the moment.

When people were starting to make their way down to the beach at their own pace, Leah latched Kim's arm and pulled her aside while Jared started to walk with Jacob.

"What's going on?" Leah asked. "Who the hell is here?"

Kim stared ahead and nodded in that direction. At that moment, Leah hated her. It was an irrational hatred, but she still hated her.

Among the group of people that Leah saw—the people that had always been here and would always be here—the only new person was Quil. It was only Quil. Nobody else.

Kim felt Leah tense up. "I know it's not Paul—"

"It's whatever," Leah said with a shrug, and she instantly closed up again. The hint of excitement that had captured her just at the possibility of the Incredible Return of Paul Lahote was enough to make her want to die. Now that she saw that he truly wasn't here and would never be here again, she felt completely embarrassed. She could feel herself burning from the embarrassment.

"I'm sorry," Kim told her. "I really am."

Leah nodded. "Yeah."

"Will you stay?"

"So you lied to me to get me to leave the house?"

"Quil's still our friend," Kim reminded Leah. "He's been our friend since we were kids."

"First of all," Leah said, "Quil's _your_ friend. You know he's always annoyed me. And don't you think it's kinda fucked up how you had me thinking Paul was back?"

Kim shook her head impatiently. "I didn't at all imply that Paul was back, so I don't know where you got that idea from. And my bad for not knowing you hate Quil. It's hard to tell since you're so bitter to everyone all the time."

"It's whatever," Leah said again, trying to be cool but boiling with anger underneath it all.

"You can go home if you want," Kim told her.

"I'm already here."

"But you're clearly not happy about it."

Leah would never give somebody the benefit of getting her to leave. She was really passive-aggressive in that way, and it drove Kim mad, but Kim had always stuck with Leah through thick and thin—for the most part, at least. They had more history than anything.

"I'll stay," Leah said. "Is Em here?"

They started walking down to the driftwood benches, where everybody else was. The group had just exploded with laughter—Quil Ateara was back, for sure. Even if Leah didn't particularly like him, she couldn't deny that he really was the life of the party, even as he'd been gone for over two years.

"I think so," Kim answered.

Leah and Kim approached the group, and Kim quickly found a spot next to Jared. He wrapped his arm around her again, and Leah felt the urge to roll her eyes. She had a good number of friends, but of course, it was her best friend to be the one to date the guy that Leah disliked the most. Leah had always gotten bad vibes from Jared—besides the fact that his narcissism was a prime reason as to why she lost her scholarship to UPenn, he just rubbed her the wrong way. Also, he constantly made Kim feel inadequate, which Leah hated. Even lately, Kim and Jared had been having issues. Between Prom and graduation, they had broken up and gotten back together again twice. Whenever Leah pointed this out to Kim, Kim just brushed it off because Leah's general disposition was bitter. That didn't mean she was wrong, though.

Leah found Emily and sat on her right. Embry was on Emily's left, and Leah waved to him.

"Finally decided to leave the basement?" Leah asked.

"Decided to pay my yearly visit."

Leah smiled. "I appreciate it."

She looked at Emily, who was looking down at the tablet in her lap. "How's it going?" Leah asked. She hadn't seen her in a while since Emily hadn't been able to make it to her graduation because of her job. She missed her.

Emily tapped away at the device. She was on a word processor, but Leah didn't read because she knew how Emily got about people reading what she wrote: angry.

Emily quickly finished typing and saved the document. She looked up at Leah and sat up straighter. "It's going good," she said.

Leah stretched her legs out, her heels digging into the sand, and she stared out at the ocean. At First Beach, sometimes she felt like she was at the edge of the world even though she knew it wasn't.

"You been taking care of yourself, girl?" Leah asked.

"Yeah," Emily said, staring down at the sand. "Thanks for asking. How are you?"

"I'm fi—Wait, what the fuck is Claire doing here with _Quil_?"

Emily looked in the same direction as Leah with scrunched up eyebrows. Just under the sun stood Claire, Emily's fourteen-year-old cousin from the Makah rez, and she walked with Quil, hand-in-hand.

Leah stood up and walked towards them, Emily following. Leah paid Quil no mind. "What are you doing here?" she asked Claire. Even though she wasn't technically related to her, Leah treated her like her own family.

"It's a free beach," Claire said, her tone brattier than usual. She had just gotten braces, too, which didn't make her look any less bratty.

"Thanks for the welcome home, Lee," Quil said sarcastically.

"You're a sick fuck, Quil," Leah replied.

Emily turned to Claire. "Who are you living with right now?" she asked the young girl quietly.

"Grandma," Claire replied.

Emily nodded in understanding.

"Why did you bring a fourteen-year-old down here?" Leah snapped at Quil.

"I'll be fifteen in August," Claire interjected.

"Doesn't matter," Leah said, still staring at Quil. "You brought this kid down here as your date while you're eighteen years old. You're a damn adult and you're dating this girl. I ought to call the cops."

" _Sheesh,_ I didn't kidnap the girl," Quil said. "You don't know what we've got."

"I have a good fucking idea," Leah said, balling up her fists. "What the fuck do you want to do with a fourteen-year-old girl, anyway, Quil? What's so fucking sexy about braces and training bras and pink Sketchers? Huh?"

She got closer to him and he started to back up. He was a little taller than her, but he was still the same punk-ass kid she'd been annoyed with from the start.

"Back up, Leah," he warned her, puffing out his chest.

"What are you gonna do about it?" she asked. "Knowing your weak ass, you wouldn't do shit about it. I should knock your teeth out for trying to fuck a kid. What, did the weed kill all your brain cells? Do you not have any sense at all?"

Suddenly, there was a crowd around them. Something semi-big always happened whenever they all linked up. All the sharks had smelled the blood and started swimming. Jared was the first to come up and pull them apart. He went to Leah and started to pull her back.

"Chill out, Lee," he said.

She shoved him. "Get off of me, Jared. You should be holding back your boy Quil over here, since he's just _dying_ to get into a fourteen-year-old girl's pants."

"Shut the fuck up," Jared said to her.

She turned and shoved him again, harder this time. It took him all his strength to not push her back. "Fuck off."

"Ease up, Lee," Jacob said.

Leah ignored him and turned back to Quil. "Don't you dare touch her," she told him. "I'll fucking ruin you."

She backed up and turned to Claire. "Me and Em are gonna take you home," Leah said. She looked at Emily. "Right, Em?"

"Yeah."

The three of them started to make their way back to the parking lot. They were almost at Emily's car, a red Dodge Stratus, when they heard yelling. Emily and Leah stopped and turned around. Claire waited at the car.

"You're always taking Leah's side, Kim!" Jared yelled, completely unaware of how loud he was. "I'm starting to think you're dating _her_ instead of me."

"She's my best friend," Kim retorted. "And we both know Quil's wrong. Why are you defending him? Just because he's your weed dealer doesn't mean you have to be his bitch."

"You don't have to be Leah's bitch," he told her. "You're turning more into her every single day, and I don't like it."

Kim truly was a nice girl with nice intentions, but because of that reason alone, she would never stop being nice and start defending herself. She only stopped being so nice when she had to stick up for somebody else, like Ashley—or in this case, Leah.

Kim would protect anyone she cared about except herself.

"Good," she said. "I'd rather be real and like Leah than be a fake to make you feel better."

"You're really gonna regret saying that, Kim," Jared told her.

"I doubt it. Now leave me the fuck alone."

She started to walk towards Leah and Emily with her pride on her shoulders. Jared was cursing to himself and walking back to the beach. He wouldn't be upset forever; he'd just smoke the feeling away tonight with Quil, who clearly hadn't gotten clean in Neah Bay. Kim was serious, though. She and Jared were over for good. She couldn't see himself forgiving him ever again because there was no fucking way he was going to say that about Leah ever again.

Leah, Emily, and Claire were silent as Kim approached them.

"Neah Bay's an hour-and-a-half drive, right?" Kim asked. "We better get going."

She climbed into the backseat behind Leah, Leah got the shotgun seat, and Claire got behind Emily, who quickly started to drive away.

* * *

After dropping Claire off at her grandma's house in Neah Bay, Emily turned up the radio a little and started to drive towards Port Angeles.

"I don't wanna go back to La Push," she said.

Leah smiled. "Me neither."

They were driving for a while, Kim leaning forward behind Leah, when Kim asked, "So what's the deal with Quil and Claire?"

"They met up in Neah Bay," Emily said. "I didn't know they were a thing until today, though. I haven't seen either of them around."

"Claire seems like a little ho," Kim remarked.

"Her mom's never around," Emily explained. "She's staying with our grandma right now, so her mom must be out of it again. And, anyway, I wouldn't call her a ho when it was more than likely Quil who came onto her first."

"Sorry, my mistake," Kim said. She nudged Leah. "I wish you got to fight Quil back at the beach."

"Me, too," Leah said. "I was ready to beat his ass. Like, you don't fuck with underage girls. I don't know how he didn't see how wrong that is. I know he's your friend and all, but—"

"He's not my friend," Kim clarified. "He's Jared's friend. And fuck Jared."

"Did you guys break up for real back there?" Emily asked.

"Yeah," Kim replied. "For real and for good. I want nothing to do with him anymore."

"Fight night almost popped off back at the beach," Emily recalled. "Things got wild real quick."

"It felt good," Kim said. "Breaking up with Jared, I mean."

Leah smiled to herself. "I'm proud of you, Bambi," she said.

"Thanks, babe." Kim turned to Emily. "What are we gonna do in Port Angeles?"

"Anything we want," Emily replied.

"Good," Leah said, "'cause I'm hungry."

Upon entering Port Angeles, Emily drove as they all searched for the nearest McDonald's. Out in the badlands, they just couldn't get the classic fast food corporation's delicacies every day. When they saw the golden arches to heaven, it was practically Christmas morning.

At around ten that night, the three of them sat inside McDonald's and shared a pile of chicken nuggets and French fries. Nothing was wrong for the moment. They laughed over stupid shit like old friends, and when it was all said and done, they walked around the streets of the main part of Port Angeles like they knew the place. The closest thing people like them had to a big city was alive, and they embraced it with open arms.

They walked past a tattoo parlor, and Kim jokingly said she was going to get a tattoo except it wasn't a joke. Before Kim entered, Leah asked if she was high. Kim just laughed it off. Leah could keep believing Kim was a druggie, but she hadn't done molly since Prom night. Kim was just feeling more brave and free at the moment.

Leah and Emily just side-eyed each other as they followed Kim into the tattoo shop.

It took hours, but once it was over, Kim had tattoos of angel wings on her upper back. It wasn't anything too crazy, but Kim felt victorious. (Leah thought the idea of angel wings was cheesy, but she didn't say anything.)

When they all got back to Emily's car, all that Kim could do was laugh.

"What's so funny?" Leah asked.

"I think I've finally stopped caring."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I think I'll maintain my Monday-Wednesday-Friday flow. There are a lot of chapters in this story and I don't want to take up a whole year writing it. __Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	12. XII

_**A/N:** I own no part of the Twilight Saga, though I'd have to worry less about college tuition if I did. Sydney proofread this chapter. (Thanks, baby g.)_

 _If the first part of this chapter looks familiar to you, then it should. I wrote a one-shot called "His Strange Weather" a little while ago, back when I wasn't sure if this story was gonna work or not._

 _A guest reviewer asked for clarification on the pairings. At the next author's note, at the end of the chapter, I'll list all the pairings that happen in the timespan of the story. Spoiler alert!_

 _Enjoy!_

 **XII.**

 _you are unfixable_  
 _i can't break through your world_  
 _'cause you live in shades of cool_  
 _your heart is unbreakable_

* * *

As she had grown up in Washington all her life, Leah Clearwater had always been fond of the rain, but not when it worked against her. Washingtonians were funny like that.

Leah loved to watch the wet droplets slide down her bedroom window, but not down her arms. The static-like soundtrack was beautiful against her roof, but not on her head, on her clothes, or the sidewalk she occupied. The sky, too—a dark, gray abyss—was calming and damn near poetic when she watched from her screen door, but not when she was underneath it. The idea of experiencing the rain live was a strange one.

This weather was strange in itself because when it rained here in La Push, out in the worst of the badlands, it didn't usually storm. The rain here spoke for the rain in all of Washington: silently unnoticed. Today, a peculiar afternoon in the middle of July, it let out its emotions, no matter how abrasive. It _stormed_.

This weather spoke for Leah, too. Incredible. If only her words would speak for her instead, because as she slightly stared up at the one and only Paul Lahote, clad in a worn-out leather jacket (she hadn't given him his other one back yet), she had no words.

The only thing stranger than the weather of La Push was Paul's. His strange weather made him unidentifiable. Not like how he used to be.

Paul was too cool now—too cool for La Push, for Leah, for anything and anyone he'd left behind and returned to last May and left again. If it wasn't raining, he would hide behind his sunglasses again, even though he hadn't gotten beaten up again.

He lived in shades and shades of cool these days. Leah could tell and this was the first time she was seeing him again since May. His coolness had thrived in California for some time now, because palm trees were cooler than Sitka ones, because In-N-Out was cooler than Dick's, because rent higher than heaven was better than anything sensible. California was _that_ kind of cool. Almost every cool person Leah had ever known that moved from someplace else and to her school was from California. It didn't matter where. Not Paul's kind of cool, though, merely because Paul was not cool.

Paul had been uncool since the dawn of time, and a crazy-ass, in the eyes of others, since the age of three. He'd been stricken with ADHD, and a heavy dose of it. He hadn't been cool when he randomly ran out of elementary school every two weeks, or when he hadn't been able to concentrate on his homework only to come home and have his dad beat the living shit out of him like the knowledge would come to him as quickly as the bruises did. That wasn't cool. It wasn't cool at all.

Leah supposed it was good to forget, and good to move on from the bad things of the past, but not from the good things. Even though she was angry, Leah _was_ a good thing.

"Where've you been?" she asked him. He was so cool that they had to stand outside to meet again. She was practically drowning in the rain. _Cool_ was not a synonym for _sensible._

And it wasn't like she didn't know where he had been—he'd been in California since Tacoma was just too close—but she wanted to know what he'd say. Nothing simple, if he was completely cool now.

"Paradise," he replied.

 _Fucking knew it._

"I heard you've got your life made for you now," Leah said, wiping rain from her face, only for it to be replaced with new, fresh rain. "Heard you've gotten too big for the rest of us." It was like he was a celebrity, but the mental part of it had slipped out and become real. He'd always been a star in his own mind—Paul Lahote, extraordinaire of everything and nothing—and now it was almost real. Even as he was one of the most false, horrible people she had ever known, she knew he was being real in all of this. He was a living contradiction.

"Just a little bit," Paul said. Leah hoped he wouldn't make it as an actor—he couldn't hide anything for shit. His classic smirk made an appearance. Now Leah _hoped to God_ he would never try to make it as an actor; he'd break character every time, all because he couldn't help it.

"What have you been up to?" she asked, itching to smile back. She hated him—she hated him _so_ much—but she wanted to laugh like old friends, like they were kids who shared secrets periodically, like he hadn't broken her heart over and over and over again.

"Chasing dreams and paper and all that," he replied. "I've really got things made—it's awesome."

Leah raised a brow. "Real shit?"

"Real shit. The realest shit."

"That's great, I guess." Her tone dipped into sarcasm, but he didn't catch on too quickly. He wasn't quite on her level.

"It's amazing. It's like…" Paul looked like he was going to drown in the rain, but he was so into the moment, the _coolness_ of the moment, that he didn't mind. It just made him cooler. "It's like my world is impeccable. Unbreakable. It's fantastic."

"I know," Leah said, her voice full out sour. "Your world is really unbreakable. That probably explains why you ran off so fast last May and now you're acting like it never happened."

She was still angry, but she knew she should get over it before it hurt her even more. Her love with Paul had been part-time, just like all the other love around here. Why was she so surprised? Maybe it was because she thought they had been special when in reality, they were as ordinary as everyone else. They weren't special at all.

"Oh, Lee. Your passive-aggression hasn't died, has it?"

"Actually, a little passive-aggression a day keeps me up a level like you wouldn't _believe_."

He chuckled, but it was hardly audible under the sound of the rain.

Leah didn't get the point in any of this. Were they supposed to be catching up? A part of her wanted to know what he'd been doing, how he'd been living, but another part of her already knew that it wasn't legal, so it didn't matter. He had run away to get away from the trouble only to find more of it. And because she was notoriously passive-aggressive, dripping with sarcasm, and the queen of sly digs, it also didn't matter that she was going to set herself up for disappointment. He was good at being fake, and she was good at that.

"Walk with me?" he asked, turning his body in the opposite direction, looking over his shoulder at Leah. He wasn't even an actor to her; he was a full-on motion picture of his own. A lovely vision in black and white, that was what he was. So Leah walked with him. As much as she hated him and all that he'd done to her, she couldn't think of a day when she wouldn't walk with him. She had never missed out on that opportunity because he was too magnificent to deny. He was hardly real to her sometimes, and that was where the damage came in. She often saw him as a force or a concept or a work of art as opposed to a person, and she hated to admit it. She was completely tangled in him.

"So, who's got your heart today?" Leah asked him, and it wasn't even passive-aggressive or rude; that was just how Paul functioned. It was a natural law that Paul was capable of loving everyone and everything, just not all at once.

"This girl named Belén," he says, bringing out his Spanish accent. "Belén Gutierrez."

Leah fought the urge to roll her eyes. There was only one reason why he was into this Belén, probably: he was embracing his half-Mexican heritage, so he had to put his hands on anything remotely Latina, which was also probably why he had spent time in California. He had infamously been one to fall in love with beautiful names, regardless if the person was beautiful or not. That was why Leah hardly ever stood a chance with him.

" _¿Cómo es ella?_ " Leah knew Paul got a kick out of the Spanish language, and she was better at speaking it, whereas he was better at understanding it. He loved hearing her speak Spanish.

" _Ella es muy bonita y le gusta bailar._ "

Leah smiled, not at the importance of what he said, but the choice of vocabulary, and, of course, the way he said it. He was still on the first level of Spanish vocabulary. Belén was very pretty, and she liked to dance. Amazing. Incredible. _So cool._ As if Leah wasn't like that, too. Paul was totally in it for the name. The only thing he loved more than women was their names, and she didn't even have to ask him that. She knew it because she knew him, all the facets of him. What made it even worse was that she knew the real him yet he still chose to be a fake in front of her.

Rain soaked through Leah's light jacket, lighter shirt, and nearly impermeable exterior personality as she walked close to Paul. She was totally calm except for the brewing underneath her skin that made her burn up. She was surprised she wasn't steaming yet.

Paul was so difficult: he was unfixable, and his heart was absolutely unbreakable. She could hate him all she wanted, but she could never hurt him no matter how hard she tried. What was even worse is that California hadn't made him unbreakable; he'd been that way almost all his life. All it had taken was one break from his father, and suddenly, he had become solid. In two pieces, but two solid pieces.

She couldn't make him better, either, but when he called out for truth and honesty, he called for her. He always did. He lived for love—even the bad kind and the fake kind—but when he wanted the real deal, he knew what it was and where to find it even if he didn't always go there. His relationship with Leah was so unbalanced; his heart was closed and full, yet hers was open and empty. She'd give everything, though, and he wouldn't. He wasn't real enough. There was nothing she could do about that, either.

"When will you go back to California?" Leah asked. It was a more straightforward and honest question to ask than just _How long will you be here?_ She could also save herself from the further heartbreak earlier. Any amount of time he said he'd be here would never, ever be enough. She couldn't do anything about his strange weather, and it shouldn't have taken her so long to realize that.

"Soon," he said. "Before you'll get used to me again."

"I don't think I could ever get used to you again. Not even if you stay here with me for the rest of my life."

Knowing Paul, her words didn't even hurt him. Nothing hurt when your heart was unbreakable.

He looked down at her with a look of understanding. Hopefully, he understood himself. It shouldn't matter if Leah did.

"I guess it's time for me to go, then," he said, not at all out of spite. There wasn't a hint of bitterness on his tongue. He'd always been that way: pure.

"Okay," Leah responded. "Okay." She was not as solid or hard or mean as she thought she was.

"I'll see you around?" he asked.

She knew damn well _she'd_ see _him_ around, but he wouldn't keep his eye out for her since he had better things to be searching for. "Maybe."

He wasn't headed toward a car or anything—just away from her, just like old times. Just lovely. "I'll be praying," he said.

Leah nodded her head up and down. That was all he was about when he wasn't chasing his unrequited dreams, even since childhood: he'd be praying for peace, love, and Leah to find something new, just like he had. He was okay with letting her go, and she hated that the most. He was also done with trying and all about praying. He was too cool for her, but not above praying for those who needed it.

 _What a savior._

He turned around completely and began to walk away without even a wave in Leah's direction.

"Stay cool," she called to him, watching the droplets of water drip down the back of his leather jacket.

"The coolest," he responded.

* * *

Paul didn't go back to California. He lived with Embry in La Push, but he spent most of his time in Port Angeles with Belén until she broke up with him after two weeks of dating. He never came through with their plans and was always running off, so she got sick of it like anyone else would. At least Leah wasn't the only girl he did that with.

By the middle of July, summer had gotten boring already. Waking up on Embry's living room couch everyday, Paul realized that La Push bored the shit out of him, and so did the people. These people weren't his real friends; he only hung out with them because he'd grown up with them, not because he wanted to be with them. Embry stayed cooped up in his room, on his computer, and Seth was there occasionally, but all he did was sit in Embry's room, too.

Whenever Paul asked what they were doing, Embry just brushed it off and said it was unimportant. It turned out that they were trying to locate Embry's father just so Embry could finally know who he was. Paul didn't know how that was gonna work out, but he wished them the best of luck.

Alone, Paul tried to see everybody he had once known and somewhat missed. Jared was busy getting ready for college, which made him mostly unavailable. Kim was great and all, but she was a clear gateway to Leah, and he was not about to upset her again since he didn't have an immediate death wish. Sam and Emily were nowhere to be found and Paul wasn't up for searching for them. Quil was just an idiot. That left Paul with Jacob. He didn't miss him that much, but he'd be the safest to deal with.

Paul found Jacob in his garage, working on a car. It was an old Volkswagen Rabbit, and Jacob had built it from scratch. He had started building it when he was a sophomore, and he was finally getting it finished this summer. What had started as broken-looking parts was now a shiny red car that was just about equipped for driving.

"Didn't think you'd ever finish it," Paul said as he walked into Jacob's garage.

Jacob turned around. "Oh, hey, Paul." He went back to work.

Paul walked around the garage, looking at all the tools lying around. As much as he dealt with cars, he had never learned to fix them up. The skills would probably come in handy soon; his new car had some bad brakes. "'Sup?" he asked.

"Uh..." Jacob was more focused on the Rabbit. "Just working on this. Almost done." He used a wrench to tighten something, and he set it down when he was done.

He went into the driver's seat of the car and started it up. It hummed to life, and Jacob smiled.

 _What a good kid. Never did drugs or got into fights or got anyone pregnant, either. I'm such a good fucking kid._

"Done," he said.

"Cool," Paul replied. "I was thinking we could whip down to Ocean Shores. I'll cover gas."

"Can't, sorry," Jacob said, still in his car. "I gotta go to Forks."

"For what?"

"You know Charlie Swan, the one cop from Forks? Probably not. Well, his daughter's coming home next month and I've gotta make sure her truck still works. I was supposed to be taking care of it all year but I didn't. She only drives it around during the summer, anyway."

"You never told me about this girl," Paul said.

"That's because you've been gone for years, so you don't really know shit. And that's also because she's about as important as every other white girl who lives around here. She never comes down here to the rez and I haven't hung out with her since we were seven. She's strictly Forks-oriented."

"Oh. Well, we should go down to Ocean Shores soon, anyway."

"I'll think about," Jacob said. He wouldn't actually think about it. Paul was such a hothead and a mystery, especially now, that it'd be impossible to sit in a car with him for almost three hours. He understood that Paul was lonely since he had left everyone and acted like he was better than everyone, but that wasn't Jacob's fault. Paul had thrown himself out of the loop.

Paul was already out the door by the time Jacob got out of the Rabbit.

* * *

Paul didn't have the slightest clue as to what to do or where to go, so he just walked. La Push was a really small area, anyway. There was no way to get lost.

He had just gotten past Jared's house when he saw a blue pickup truck packed with boxes parked in front of a house. It was more of a cabin, all woodsy and secluded. Paul went to see what was going on.

He went down a long dirt driveway until he saw Sam walk up to the pickup truck to get another couple of boxes. "Hey, Paul," he said.

"Hey," Paul greeted him. "Moving day?"

Sam nodded. "Yup. Grab a box and help us out."

Paul grabbed a box from the truck and followed Sam into the house. Paul had seen it before, but he couldn't remember who used to live in it. Emily was making her way out the door as Paul and Sam entered it.

"Hey, Em," Paul said.

She smiled at him, but she was clearly holding something back.

"Em, have you guys decided on which room is gonna be the baby's?" Leah's loud called from inside the house.

 _Fuck,_ Paul thought. _Leah._

Paul ended up walking right into Leah, and he had to pretend like he hadn't had the greatest sex of his life with her. She gave him a look that shook him to the bone. "Watch where you're going," she told him, her voice soft, quiet, and as cold as ice. Then she followed Emily out to the pickup truck.

"I didn't know you guys were having a baby," Paul said to Sam as they set the boxes down in the spacious living room. "Congrats, man."

"Thanks," Sam said. His tone was always the same: serious. Paul could never tell if he was happy or sad or angry or anything. He was totally stoic all the time.

Emily and Leah reentered the house and walked down the hallway. Paul heard Leah murmuring to Emily, and he knew it was about him, but he didn't care.

 _Just let her talk. Talk is all she is._

Paul helped bring all the boxes into the house and then quickly went home. He wasn't proud to admit that Leah had run him out with his tail between his legs, but he wasn't prepared for her whiplash just yet. Even though he played it cool, she was capable of stinging him every single time.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** And that was chapter twelve, thus concluding what I call the high school arc. The next couple of chapters are gonna move the perspective over to Bella and Jacob. Get ready._

 _And for the definitive list of pairings, not in chronological order (spoiler alert):_

 _-Leah/Paul_

 _-Paul/Bella_

 _-Jacob/Bella_

 _-Bella/Edward_

 _-Bella/Kim_

 _-Jacob/Leah (maybe)_

 _-Emily/Sam_

 _-Emily/Embry_

 _-Leah/Emmett_

 _-Kim/Jared_

 _-Paul/Rachel_

 _-Kim/OC Ashley (circa. chapter 8)_

 _-Quil/Claire (doesn't last long, I promise)_

 _So as you can see, everybody kind of gets with everybody. I wish there was a way to clarify that in the story stats, but I didn't put pairings there for that reason alone. And the characters should be listed as Leah, Bella, Paul, and then Jacob, in order of importance, but this website put it in alphabetical order, which is annoying. So there you go._

 _Feedback is appreciated and thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	13. XIII

_**A/N:** Dearest reader, we are heading into new territory: Bella Swan. I hope you like her._

 _I own no part of Twilight._

 _Sydney preread this. Ily babes._

 _Enjoy._

 **XIII.**

 _this is special, baby_  
 _fuck 'em, only we know_

* * *

Once Bella Swan got into her father's police Cruiser waiting for her at the Port Angeles airport, she started picking at her chipped purple nail polish, anxiously waiting for her cell phone to buzz and bliss to come.

She stared out her window, and even though she had been coming to Washington every summer since the end of her freshman year, she was still in shock of how green the state was. When she had reflected on Forks, she had never really pictured the town itself. Forks certainly wasn't Phoenix, but then again, Earth certainly wasn't heaven.

Forks was as plain as she expected it to be, but that wasn't what made it heaven. For Bella, Forks became heaven when she got that text from that boy she'd been seeing for a few years now. Even though it was August and not June, the summer would still be theirs, and that was what mattered. She didn't want to think about the fact that they had less time to be with each other.

Her father, Charlie, pulled into the driveway of his two-story house in Forks and, routinely, helped her out with bringing her bags up. Bella saw her old red truck, a Chevy from the sixties, in the driveway and felt content. Her truck was truly home for someone who didn't have a definitive home.

Having just graduated from high school in Phoenix, she would be taking a gap year before going on to college (possibly), and it would start this summer. Things had been really rough lately; she couldn't see herself diving right into college. If she really hated Forks in the absence of her boyfriend, then she would just go back to Phoenix to live with her mother and stepfather.

Once she had all her belongings upstairs and in the same small bedroom with the same purple linens and the same books she used to read when she was little, she checked her phone again. It turned out that she hadn't even sent him the text. _I'm so stupid._ She finally sent it out (it said, _I'm home_ ) and laid back onto her bed.

Bella Swan was what one would call a hopeless, obsessive romantic.

Even though she had been with her boyfriend for years and they knew each other more than they knew anything or anyone else, her head was still up in the clouds, in the honeymoon stage. In her head, they still had all the time in the world to be together. In reality, he had just finished his first year at Dartmouth, and he was a busy guy with big plans for himself. Maybe he didn't really have time for someone like Bella, a quiet girl with a handful of her own afflictions and who wasn't even going to college in the fall because she hadn't gotten into her top pick, but she didn't want to consider that. Instead, she focused on her love for him because it was so easy to do. Loving Edward took up all her energy so she didn't have to waste it on thinking about her problems.

Bella was head over heels in love with him. It was all she knew.

"Hey, Bells," Charlie called. "Could you come down here for a second?"

She got up and made her way downstairs to find Charlie in the kitchen. He had just set the wireless telephone down onto its base.

"Yeah, Dad?"

"So I just invited Billy and Jacob over for dinner tonight," he said. "But if you're too tired, they can come over some other time. I should have asked you first, though, so sorry about that."

"No, it's fine. Dinner tonight sounds good," she said. "What do you want to eat? I'll cook."

"Whatever you make will be just fine."

"Alright. What time are they coming?"

"They'll be here at six."

She glanced over at the clock. It was four. "Okay. I'll have something done by then."

"Thanks, Bells."

She smiled with her teeth like a good girl. "No problem."

* * *

Bella was supposed to go to the grocery store to get food for dinner, and she did end up going, but she got sidetracked when she saw none other than Edward Cullen, the person she loved more than her own life, completely on accident. She hadn't seen him since last May.

They both came there for food and ended up in his car, chilling in the very back of the parking lot. They were as high as a damn kite.

Bella's laugh was breathy as she leaned on Edward's shoulder, about to take another nice, long hit of the joint between her fingers. She held the smoke in her mouth and shifted so she could put her soft lips to his. She blew gently, and he caught a taste of his two favorite things at once: weed and Bella. (The order was interchangeable.) Then she laughed again.

"What's so funny?" he wondered.

"You're gonna get me killed someday," she said. "I'm always risking getting into all sorts of trouble when I'm with you."

They had no business smoking weed in a grocery store parking lot in broad daylight on a Saturday afternoon. Everybody knew who they were, and they knew all the sharks would come swimming at the slightest hint of blood. These people in Forks, out in the badlands... they saw everything. Out here, nobody ignored anything and everything came right back.

It was the same in that everyone ended up coming back to the badlands. The area was a beacon, and it scared Bella more than anything because she and Edward could easily fall into that mess. The badlands and the people that occupied it were living in hard, ugly times. It could permeate Bella and Edward and the epitome of _them_ at any time.

But they were better than all that, better than all those lurking sharks. They still had the chance to get out, and maybe they would. Edward was already mostly out the door, and Bella was well on her way once she got her shit together. Their less-than-admirable habits weren't all that they were; they were just hobbies.

Bella and Edward were more sane and less static than people around here because they knew their priorities. They had their heads mostly in the right place whereas no one else had their heads at all. They never put drugs over the other person; they smoked weed while enjoying each other's company. Edward knew a guy who went by Q who always hooked him and Bella up. Bella and Edward always shared, and if that wasn't love, then she had no idea what was.

They had that real, true, cinematic kind of love going for them. It only made them even better than the others because part-time love was the life round here, but theirs was full-time and it was authentic. Their love wasn't thriving due to boredom or wedlock or anything like that; they knew true romance. They lived a love story to tell to the new age forever, just so they wouldn't be forgotten. And what would they be if they weren't historical?

It was all very self-centered. That was how they were supposed to be. The _me me me_ generation thrived on this kind of self-hyping yet self-loathing, _what the hell do I do if I'm not remembered?_ mentality. These kids had more to worry about, since mental health was more in the forefront, yet they dreamed a little bigger and brighter than their parents had. These kids had to have a hedonistic air of self-fulfillment in order to survive. Living a dull life without questioning anything or searching for the finer, more beautiful things just wasn't enough anymore. Bella didn't want to stop there—she was always searching. Edward's love for her had authorized that. His love made her braver and more beautiful. She had sacrificed honesty for it, but she didn't mind.

She kissed him, and even though the image was a selfish one, she didn't want to see them any other way because deep down, she knew they were better. Only they knew the truth.

Whenever Bella mentioned Charlie's constant questions and assumptions of her and Edward, she'd tell Edward.

 _He just doesn't get it_ , he'd tell her. _He doesn't know us. Nobody does. Fuck 'em._

And Edward was right. He was always right. She'd never stop agreeing with him.

She'd nod and take another hit and repeat his words.

 _Fuck 'em._

* * *

 _When can I see you again?_

Bella tried to remain inconspicuous as she tapped at the screen of her phone in her lap. She wasn't missing much at the dinner table. She had stumbled into the house twenty minutes after six with a pizza and a half-assed apology. Still a little buzzed, she knew she hadn't missed anything important. It was the same old Charlie and Billy banter around her.

The response was assuring, as everything was with Edward. He was a solid guy. How could Bella ever not believe him?

 _Soon, baby. Soon._

Jacob, the kid who had been making sure her car was working the past couple of summers, sat quietly next to Bella as he ate his pizza. He noticed her eyes were down in her lap. He didn't want to say anything, but Billy did. Even though she had bad table manners, she was good at covering up the weed. She didn't even smell like it.

"Hey, Bella," Billy said.

She slowly looked up and dropped the phone in her lap. She blinked. "Yes?"

"How was your trip?"

"It was good," she replied. "Long. I'm pretty tired."

"I can tell," Billy replied. "Your eyes are all red."

She smiled slightly. "Sorry."

"Do you have any plans for summer, Bells?" Charlie asked.

"I'll probably just be working at the Newtons' store," Bella replied, which was true. She'd kept a steady summer job at the Newtons' Outfitters store since she had been fifteen. She was eighteen now, and she didn't really have plans on giving that job up. Mike Newton, a guy her age, had covered a lot for her in working and storytelling so she could be with Edward, and even when she was around him, she didn't mind his presence. Mike was an alright kid, and she hardly even had to do anything at the store. It was a good way to soberly kill time without entirely wanting to kill herself.

"You should come down to La Push when you're not working," Billy suggested. "Come check out something new. The beach is real nice in the summertime."

She gave him a promising look. "I'll consider it," she said even though she wouldn't. In the summers, she only hung around in Forks and Port Angeles. Edward was always telling her stories about the people in La Push and what happened to them, based on what he had heard. His dealer, Q, was always rolling into hard places and he didn't want Bella to get caught up in it, day or night. Edward only wanted her to be safe.

Even if what Edward said wasn't that true, and even if Bella would ever finally figure out that Forks was just as bad as La Push, she still found the reservation dirty. Just dirty. It was low-key racist and high-key prejudiced of her to think that, but it was true. La Push just wasn't a place for someone like her even though she was fond of going everywhere.

"You guys should go down to First Beach," Charlie said to Bella and Jacob. "While the weather's still nice."

Bella just smiled. _Wouldn't even dream of it._

Her cell phone buzzed in her lap. She looked down when the conversation moved away from her.

 _I'll pick you up tomorrow morning at ten. I have a plan and it involves ruling the world._

She typed back quickly. _The usual. I love you._

 _I love you. Forever._

 _Forever._

* * *

The next morning, Sunday, Bella was dressed and downstairs at nine forty-five. She had tried to avoid Charlie and his questions after making him breakfast an hour ago, but he was comfortably sitting at the dining room table still, sipping on a mug of coffee.

"Where ya headed to, kid?" he asked. She stopped dead in her tracks in the living room.

He knew she had been dating Edward for a while now, but she wasn't sure if he was comfortable with it yet. Since both Charlie and Edward had occupied the same space last May in Phoenix, she couldn't lie anymore. She couldn't say she was going to see Jessica Stanley, one of her coworkers, anymore. She could no longer hide.

She took a moment, thinking of a way to sound as vague as possible, but she didn't see the point in lying. She was an adult, so she should act like it, even if it wasn't true because adults lied more than anybody else.

"I'm gonna go see Edward," she told Charlie. "He's going back to Hanover at the end of the month so we wanna hang out as much as we can." (His return to the East Coast was true, but the "hanging out" part was merely a broad term for their activities.)

"Where's Hanover again?" he asked.

"New Hampshire," she said slowly, carefully.

"Right, he's an Ivy League man."

She nodded, dying to run out the front door. "Mm-hm. So I'll see you later." She turned on her heels.

"Wait, wait, wait," Charlie said.

She turned around again, losing the little patience she had left. "Yes?"

He set his mug down and looked over at her. "Don't you think you and Edward should have some..." He faltered. "I don't know, some distance? From each other?"

"We only see each other in the summertime," she reminded him. "That's the only time we see each other all year." She lived for those summers; she bloomed for them.

"Yeah, I know, Bells, but you're pretty much gone all summer. I hardly see you around the house."

"I can't be cooped up in here twenty-four seven. I have work a lot of the time," she told him. "And I still do see Mike and Jessica a lot." The last part was nothing but a lie. She only used Mike and Jessica to cover for her when she needed it.

But Charlie could almost see right through her. He was relatively easygoing, but not clueless in the least bit. "We both know you spend a lot of time around Edward," he said.

"We're kind of dating," Bella said curtly. "And like I said, we only see each other in the summer. We see each other even less now since he's in college."

"And like I said," Charlie replied, "you guys need some distance."

She could feel her face growing hot. "If you want me to see Mike and Jess more," she said quietly, "then I'll do that."

"I was thinking you could hang out more with the kids in La Push," he suggested.

She shook her head. "I don't know any of the kids in La Push."

"You know Jacob."

"Not really."

"C'mon, Bells, don't be like that. For _years_ , the guy's been making sure _you_ have a truck to drive around all the summer, and you guys were even friends when you were little. I think you know him at least a little bit."

 _That doesn't mean anything._ "I don't know anybody else in La Push," she told him. _And I'm not interested in knowing anyone there, either._

"You've graduated from high school," he reminded her. "You know how to socialize. Go and make new friends."

 _I don't know shit about interacting with other people._ "I like my current friends."

"No, you like _Edward,_ " he pointed out. "Only Edward. And there are plenty of kids out on the rez who are your age. They're just like you, I bet. You might as well get to know them since they're closeby. So give 'em a chance. Go out to La Push for a little bit. As much as you think you know everything about this area, you haven't seen much. You just might like it."

She clenched her jaw. "Okay," she said. "How do I give La Push a chance, then?"

"Go out with Jacob," Charlie told her. Before she could say anything, he continued. "I know you don't like him like that. But you should catch up with him and act like you care. It's the least you could do since he's been making sure your truck isn't falling apart."

"Okay, I'll do it," she told him, nodding. "I'll hang out with Jacob." Then she heard a car pulling into the driveway. "That's Edward. Can I go now?"

Charlie sighed. "Go ahead."

She turned around and headed to the front door.

"Distance!" Charlie called out as the door slammed shut.

* * *

It was never summer in Forks, but when Bella was in Forks, she was hotter than the sun. Thinking about Edward set her on fire every time.

She'd been saving everything up for him like a present with a nice, big bow on it. She'd been saving all her summers just for him, and the little taste she had gotten yesterday in the parking lot hadn't been official. Now she was ready to bloom.

He had pulled up to her small town house in a big city whip, borrowed from his dad. He was only three months older, but four lifetimes. She liked to believe that money didn't age people, but with Edward, money made him into a man.

The second she got in his car and closed the door, she leaned over and kissed him hard enough, sweet enough, with enough love—all to make up for the lost time since last May. After he had visited her last May, just after she graduated, she thought they imploded. July had been the quietest, coldest month of all time. It was far past time to speak up again.

He pulled away to breathe, and when he looked her in the eyes, he knew that they had never imploded; they had blossomed all over again. Yesterday in the parking lot hadn't been formal enough.

"I miss you," he told her. Present tense.

"I'm here," she told him. Present tense.

"I didn't stay mad."

"I know."

He put his lips on hers again, and her heart exploded. It burned the entire fifteen minutes it took to get to his house on the other side of town, and she was in love. She was alive.

* * *

She wasn't much of a homebody, seeing as she liked to go places for fun, but he was, seeing as he hated traveling unless he absolute had to. Bella was a homebody around Edward, though, since she was so adaptable. So they settled in his big, empty house on the other side of Forks, in the woods and on the other side of the sticks. With a bottle of her favorite white wine and a bag of her favorite weed, they were in heaven.

Life was sweet—it actually couldn't get much sweeter than this, and when they officially reunited in a soft bed (though she wasn't particularly picky), she was _gone_. Out of this world. All that was left was the cloud of smoke as evidence of the explosion. And when it was all said and done, he picked up the pieces and stitched her back into who she wanted to be, the best she could be. He had done it before.

Except this time, she wasn't sad afterward. She was reflective because his love wasn't entirely distracting from her harsh memories, but she wasn't sad.

Their first summer together continued to haunt her. Somewhere inside, that little fifteen-year-old part of her hadn't died yet. That summer had been a sweet, beautiful, youthful mess that had turned ugly on the last day. Knowing her better than anyone else, he'd had the choice to be disrespectful, make her feel shameful and embarrassed for opening up to him in the way that she had, and he had taken it. Their first summer together had ended rotten because she had been delicate and he had been full of pride. That aspect of trust was long gone, but she was stronger this time around. She had enough pride to tell him when he was being disrespectful, and he wasn't even being disrespectful now.

They had definitely grown. They had too much history to have not grown.

So she couldn't be sad afterward, and he couldn't be regretful. She couldn't be embarrassed, and he couldn't be self-loathing (she did that enough for the both of them regardless). He held her tight. She had saved everything for him, and now he had to save the pieces.

For the time being, it was almost like that freezing July hadn't happened between that cool June and this scorching August.

She had sat high and dry, and it was then that he truly saw how small she was. They had been together for years now, the most transformative years of their lives, but now he could see.

Everything about her was tiny. Small lips curved into a pout, and she had a small nose, as well as small wrists with small scars etched into them. The only remotely wide things about her were her tired brown eyes, her stretched hips with tiny signatures of adolescence to prove it, and her elastic heart.

He said to her, "You are so small."

She said, "Then let me grow."

She didn't have to get permission this time.

At this very moment, this very reunion, she blossomed on her own. That cold July had allowed her to replant herself.

* * *

Bella stared up at his ceiling. Edward was cocky and rich enough to have a mirror up there, and she couldn't help but notice how awkward she looked compared to him. In that aspect, she was still that little fifteen-year-old. Even though she was eighteen and she knew she was beautiful, it was hard to believe it when he, just having turned nineteen, was a god on Earth.

Her flaws stuck out to her the most. Her breasts were uneven, and her stomach could be flatter. Her dark brown hair splayed out onto the gold satin pillow, thick and wild. Everything about him was even and symmetrical, though, from his picture-perfect face to his smooth stomach to his wildly beautiful bronze hair.

"Anyone," she murmured. "You could have picked anyone, and you picked me."

The only thing she wore was the promise ring he had given her, on a necklace. She knew that if she wore it on her finger, she'd only lose it. That ring, given to her the summer after her sophomore year, when they were in Seattle, was the most beautiful thing about her.

"I've never wanted anyone else," he reminded her for only the fiftieth time today. But what he said remained true. He had seen a lot of women in a lot of places, but none of them compared to Bella because he knew the real her and he knew that she was beautiful.

It was true in that she had afflictions of her own, but she knew how to keep searching for meaning even when they seemed out of her reach. He had been that way before he met her, but the second she had come into his life was the second he had given that ability up to remain as stable as possible. She was mostly unstable in other fields, but she remained absolutely stable in regards to him.

It was what he loved the most about her: she knew her freedom.

She just didn't know her value. That was because she didn't know herself at all. All she knew was how much she loved him, and it made her both stable and unstable.

He didn't know how to give good conversation; just good wine, good weed, and good head. So he kept holding onto her like things were the same as before her graduation, like her depression hadn't taken a toll on everything they had, and like he hadn't left her frozen because he hadn't known how to fix her or her issues.

His stability was what she needed more than anything, especially when she had spun out so far from who she used to be.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** If nothing regarding Bella and Edward makes sense right now, give me a minute. I've got it all written out. I'll update Monday._

 _Feedback is encouraged and thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	14. XIV

_**A/N:** Dearest reader, I now present the 14th of many chapters of Static. Any guesses as to how many there are? (To those who already know, don't say anything.)_

 _If you're familiar with my work then this chapter will probably be familiar to you - it was lifted from Esta Noche, a one-shot I wrote a long time ago. As you can tell, I've had Static in the works for a while now._

 _Sydney preread this chapter and I thank God for her everyday._

 _I own no part of Twilight._

 _Enjoy, as always._

 **XIV.**

 _he prefers the exclusive kind_

* * *

He didn't need to see her face, or hear her laughter, or feel her tears to have an idea that there was something daunting underneath the surface. Knowing too much would make things unbalanced, but surely enough, he would want to remember her face since she donned such interesting, intricate features that he couldn't quite say he loved yet, but he loved to stare at.

And he would want to remember her laughter as well, since it didn't come along often, but when it did, it was unforgettable. She had a genuine, breathy, honest laugh that seemed to echo in his mind, over and over. He had yet to see her tears, but that might be a good thing.

He was already fascinated, much to her ability and his surprise; seeing those chocolate brown eyes as wide as the moon in tears would break his sturdy (or was it really?) heart already. He felt like he knew this girl more than he really did, but he didn't even know what he knew about her yet, and in all honesty, it scared him. It made him shiver. It made him wince and ache and his palms start to sweat. More so, it made him want to stay. He wasn't a fucking coward.

That _she_ was Bella Swan. Jacob knew her—of course he knew her—but he didn't _know_ her. Maybe he didn't know that she, who had likely suffered through a few winters of her life, didn't walk the summer grass lightly. Maybe he didn't know that she had lived in different worlds all in one, leaving trails of thoughts and hearts behind her. Maybe he didn't know her that much at all when he brought himself back to reality, and maybe that was okay.

Bella's brown eyes squinted as she walked into the light, nearly blinded by the sun's first real rays of summer. He watched her from the side, the light perfectly complementing her profile. Her gait was a lanky one, her high heels in her hands and swaying in the wind. Jacob was unsure as to why she was carrying them instead of wearing them, and he didn't plan on finding out sometime tonight, though he might. She was mysterious in all the good ways, and the mysterious girls always had the most to say.

Her pale skin shivered as the warmth and light from the sun spread slowly across her body. She couldn't play the know-it-all tonight, especially now that he was seeing the truth. She'd been to Forks plenty of times, but she really hadn't been in the rare sun. She'd driven past forest after forest, but she hadn't taken the time to smell the air and realize, _this isn't so bad_ _without Edward_ _after all_.

She blinked, remembering what she was here for.

Bella looked over her shoulder and asked Jacob, "So are we going to go to dinner or not?"

Her dark brown waves spilled down to the middle of her back, and there were little tints of red in them in the light, which Jacob just noticed. Bella—this Bella, the Bella who stood in her backyard for minutes just to feel the sun and went on dates with boys she didn't like to make her father happy—seemed like she had a story for her hair alone. She seemed like the type to have a story for everything.

It had been her idea to take a little walk in her backyard before leaving, though, but Jacob didn't say anything. A story for her reasoning would occur, and he was just trying to get this date done by eight o'clock. He knew it wasn't genuine since she had called him for the first time ever two hours ago, but it was probably in his best interest to follow through.

With his hands stuffed deep down in the pockets of his nicest jeans, he nod over to his car, the Rabbit. "Alright," he said. "Let's go."

She shrugged like that wasn't her idea in the first place and slipped back into her heels, shifting her height from five-foot-four to five-foot-nine in an instant. Her pale legs appeared longer, stretching what seemed like miles and miles past her simple forest green dress that ended just a few inches above her knees.

His eyes traced the soft curves of her body, trying not to get too distracted by her cleavage, and even though they were both the same age and fresh out of high school, he couldn't help but realize _damn_. She had curves that didn't quit, and the nicest, fullest ass he'd ever seen on a white girl. She was a woman. She wasn't very good at walking like one, though, in those impossible heels, so he slowed down his pace for her a bit as they walked to the car.

"You don't have to slow down for me," she informs him. "I'm keeping up just fine. You're moving slower than a turtle."

"Isn't that the gentlemanly thing to do?" he asked.

She shrugged again. "Chivalry is overrated."

He raised his eyebrows. "Is it really?"

They approached his car, and he instinctively went to her side first to open the door. She gave him a disapproving look and he paused.

"Yes, Jacob," she told him. "It's overrated and outdated."

"Nice rhyme," he acknowledged.

"I do it all the time."

She opened her own door and got into the car, and he could only make a short prayer for himself as he made his way over to the driver's side. He'd never gotten so worried over a date in his entire life, and he was eighteen! It also didn't help to mention that this wasn't even a real date from what it looked like. It seemed like the kind of thing Billy and Charlie would set up since Jacob was just so, so hopeless in regards to girls. Billy forgot that Jacob had taken a girl to Prom, but she wasn't important anymore; she hadn't called him after the event.

Since Bella had been able to drive, Jacob had been keeping up with her pickup truck, a nineteen fifty-three Chevy that looked and ran mostly like crap, all year long just so she could drive it around all summer and never see him in La Push once. This date must have been organized under the realization that he'd been her free repair boy for years and that she hadn't thanked him yet. A card would have done the job, sure. But here he was, about to take her out for a burger. Tonight was the night, but then again, it was just one night. After tonight, she would never talk to him again (as if he really needed her to since, hey, she had her stuff going on and he had his). He could do this.

"So what brings you out on this date?" he asked as he started the trek from her house to a burger joint just outside La Push. He already had an idea why she was here, but he was curious as to what she was going to say.

It was only too bad that being curious with Bella wasn't much of a good thing.

"My dad says I need to thank you for the truck," she replied, "so thank you. But he's also doing this because I need 'distance.'" In the corner of his vision, he could see her making air quotes at the last word.

"Distance from what?" he wondered, his eyes on the road.

"My boyfriend," she stated, her words a bit slow and run together at the same time. "I love my boyfriend. I usually just spend my summers up here with him, but my dad's pissed all of a sudden, and, uh, now we need distance or something. It's really stupid."

She had a boyfriend, and not even just a regular boyfriend, but one she absolutely could not stay away from. Jacob called it. Okay, he hadn't call it, but he should've. He wasn't anticipating on dating Bella Swan after this date, but the chance was definitely dead.

He should've known, too. The really pretty girls always had boyfriends. The really sexy, interesting, fire-in-pants-starting ones were always fucking psycho. Everybody knew that. Jacob just couldn't tell if Bella was the latter type yet.

"I mean, it's not like this date is really stupid," Bella added on to spare Jacob's feelings. "So far, despite your old-as-dirt attempts at chivalry in this day and age, this date's going pretty well."

"All you've done is stand in your backyard."

"Yeah," she said as if she was thinking back a few years as opposed to a few minutes. "It was lovely."

 _Okay, I need to go home._

So with the mindset of _no, she's not going to be interested in you; no, she's not even going to look at you; no, she's just going to brush you off as the kid she's supposed to fulfill the little dreams of even though you both are the same age_ , Jacob took her out. Tonight was not the night, after all. It was just one night. He would only be confused and slightly annoyed for tonight.

In a friendly manner, she linked her arm to his and smiled like a single lady out for a night on the town on a Tuesday night with a man she hadn't seen in forever ( _but oh, who are you kidding, she has a BOYFRIEND_ ). He took her to the best burger spot in town. It was so great that they had to wait almost twenty minutes for a table, sitting on a bench, squished between plenty of other people. They were so close that the little black cardigan she wore over her dress was smushed up against the sleeve of his white dress shirt. He looked down, catching a good look of her cleavage, and quickly brought his gaze back up.

Their eyes met, and it was such a shame that she was already in a relationship. It was an even worse shame that she was probably crazy. She was more than just pretty, too; to Jacob, she was gorgeous. She stared at him with those doe eyes. She looked sort of jaded and lackluster, but it made him even more fascinated. If she were single and a little saner, he would be putting all his greatest moves out. At least, the best moves he had to offer.

Then again, her boyfriend was not here, he was not going to see her for the rest of the summer, and tonight was just one night.

They finally got a table, and it was all set off from there. The first thing she said after sitting down was, "Stop staring at my boobs."

This Bella wasn't the same girl who used to be as quiet as a mouse and afraid of her own shadow. She was much more candid now, as well as self-serving. She made the waitress wait a solid eight seconds before ordering her food because she was in the middle of telling a subplot to the initial story she was telling Jacob, only to stop talking for a few seconds to actually order and resume the second the waitress had their orders down.

Any other girl would be simple about where she came from or why she was where she was now or what she was doing, but not Bella. Definitely not this Bella.

"…So, anyway," she continued after taking a long sip of her cherry cola, "my mom was mad at me for entertaining the idea that I wasn't getting over my depression." She faltered, lost at her own words. Then she frowned. "I initially wasn't going to come here this summer, because not only did I not want to but also because things with my boyfriend got weird a while ago, but my mom insisted that because I am a Modern Adolescent Seeking a Great Perhaps or some shit, I had to fly up here from Phoenix. I guess it's not that bad 'cause my boyfriend's around and we kind of made up for the weirdness, even if my dad doesn't like me being around him too much, but I'm sort of stuck. I don't know if I want to go back to Phoenix at the end of the summer. I mean, shit, it's not like I have any business being there, but I don't have any business being here, either. It's been fucking with me."

She wasn't even talking at a million miles an hour; she was actually chill. Her eyes looked past Jacob, though, and he realized they were a bit red. She fanned at her eyes for a moment with her hand, and he become alarmed. _Oh, shit._

 _Oh shit oh shit oh shit._

"There's no need to cry," he told her, not really sure how to approach this. "I understand." He actually didn't understand since he'd lived in the same place since he was born and never questioned it, but stating that didn't help any more than lying did.

She gave him a small smile and wiped at her right eye with a paper napkin. "Jacob, I'm not crying," she said. "I learned not to cry over a while."

He ignored her cryptic statement and asked, "Then what's wrong? Allergies? Do you need some—?"

She laughed—loudly. "Didn't I tell you?" she said. "I smoked a little weed before you picked me up."

His jaw dropped, and she let out a single laugh and continued speaking.

"I guess I'm just starting to feel it now," she said. "If my dad goes in my room and takes a whiff, he's gonna freak." Then she laughed again, harder and louder than before. She laughed and laughed until real tears filled her eyes. Jacob thought she was about to literally start rolling on the floor until the laughter began to die down, and she had to dab a napkin at her eyes.

Jacob wanted to say this date was going well, but _whoops_.

"You know," she said, staring at him from across the little table, "you're kinda cute. In fact, you're really cute."

"I'd say you're kinda high," he replied, "but in fact, you're really high."

She started to laugh again then looked down and brought her head back up, leaning forward and staring at him like he was crazy when things were the total opposite.

"I'd probably do you," she said, which, he could admit, caused him to mentally flip out even though she was as high as a kite.

"Yeah, okay," he said, denying it nevertheless.

"No, really," she replied. "You and me… it'd be kinda cool. Do you smoke weed, too?"

"No." Quil had moved away before he'd gotten the chance.

Her face stayed the same. "You should."

The date was going horribly and he wanted to go home, but there was really nothing to do at home. This was the first interesting thing he was doing all summer, and it was August. "I'd rather not."

"What are you doing later on?" she wondered.

"Nothing." At least it was an honest answer.

"Then hang out with me," she purred.

"No."

"Please?" Her lower lip jutted out in an attractive pout.

 _You must be_ _fucking_ _Superman with the strength you've got_ _going on_ _tonight_. "No."

"Be a gentleman."

"Chivalry is overrated and outdated," he quoted.

She snorted and laughed again. "Well, shit," she said.

"Does your dad know you smoke weed to make excruciatingly boring dates more tolerable?" he wondered.

"He's a cop, if you don't remember."

"I swear to God you didn't even remember for a second."

"Oh."

He stared at her and realized that not only was she pretty and taken, but she was also very, very nuts. He was no longer jealous of her boyfriend; he felt bad for him.

"Hmm," she murmured.

"What?"

"I wouldn't do you after all," she informed him, running her index finger up and down the cold glass in front of her. He watched as she moved, careful not to look at her cleavage. She just might punch him if he did. "Even if you're really cute," she added.

"And why's that?" he wondered, not because he wanted her to particularly "do" him at this moment ( _who_ _the hell_ _are you kidding?_ ), but because he couldn't sense the transition between the quick decisions.

She shrugged and laced her fingers, bringing them up to rest under her chin. "Because I love my boyfriend."

"Okay."

She smiled, not sensing the sarcasm. "Okay," she repeated.

Their orders arrived, and Bella didn't tell any more stories. She just asked questions that he'd rather not answer.

Licking salt from her fingertips and picking up another French fry from her basket, she asked, "Have you ever gotten to third base?"

He swallowed, nearly choking. "No," he said defensively.

"That sucks." Her tone was monotonous, unaffected by how much she surprised—and continued to surprise—him.

"Yeah," he said solemnly.

"Do you even know what third base is?" she challenged.

"I'm not twelve."

"Well, color me fucked and surprised. Jake, you're such a baby. You don't smoke weed or have sex or anything. You haven't done anything. You're like a baby to me."

"I'm two months younger than you," he reminded her. "That's, like, nothing."

"It's nothing when you're eighty. When you're eighty, you're not even gonna realize it until one day you're sitting at home, watching TV or something, and realize, 'Shit, I'm eighty.'"

He sighed. He just wanted to go home. That was all. "Whatever you say, Bella."

"Don't get all defeated just because I'm right. You don't have to let me win this because I'm a girl."

He actually let her win this because she didn't make any sense. "Is this another chivalry slam?" he asked.

"No," she said thoughtfully. "It's a personal one. You're soft."

"Fine," he admitted. "I'm a big softie."

"Looks like I'll have to call you Puddin'," she said, her voice relaxed.

When he thought about it, he wouldn't mind being her Puddin', but that wouldn't help the situation at all.

He checked his watch. "We've been here a while," he observed, even though it really hadn't been that long. Then he took notice of her empty basket. _Looks like the munchies are real._

"Let's go, then," Bella quickly said, sliding back and out of her chair. It was like she was in a rush, and Jacob didn't have to ask to know who she was just dying to see after this horrific date. It couldn't have been that bad, though, could it? It certainly wasn't expected for a first (and only) date, but it wasn't boring.

He didn't ask what she thought of the date when he paid the bill and got back into the Rabbit. Bella had already taken him on a ride of confusion; she could at least spare his feelings. If the date sucked, it sucked. He didn't need to know, though. He really was soft; Puddin' was such a suiting nickname.

After parking the Rabbit in Bella's driveway, empty except for her truck ( _Where's her father? The possibilities are endless_ ), he walked her up to the front door. It was the gentlemanly thing to do, and she didn't fight it this time.

"Thanks, Jake," she told her calmly as they stood on her porch. Ending a strange date on a traditional, wholesome note sounded so wrong. "That was really sweet."

"It's no problem," he replied. "It was nice seeing you again. Now it'll get your dad off your back, huh?"

She smiled. She may have been nuts, but she was really cute at the same time. What a deathtrap. "I hope so," she agreed, her voice slow and still intoxicated.

The words slipped out before he could think them through. "Will I see you again sometime soon?" he wondered.

She leaned in for a hug. Her hands rubbed against his back, squeezing at the muscles, and then slid down to his hips. He jump a little, but it was a bit typical of her, especially now that he knew how she was and what she was about.

"Of course," she said softly in his ear. "I'll corrupt you next time I see you, so be prepared." Her hands lingered down to his posterior, and he swore to God he was gonna go as insane as she was and maybe even kiss her and—

"But I love my boyfriend," she added.

 _Typical._

He pulled out of the hug, but her hand managed to latch onto his, their fingers laced like they were lovers instead of semi-strangers. They both sighed at the same time.

"Thanks," she said.

His fingers slowly pulled away from hers. "Uh-huh," he replied sheepishly, starting to make his way back to the Rabbit, but she called his name.

He turned around. "Yes?"

"Are you sure you don't want to come inside for a while?"

His bottom lip was between his teeth as he considered. He had nothing to do, and she had nothing to do, either. They could both be a couple of nothings together. He'd get stoned with and probably bone Bella Swan in her bedroom and live to tell the tale. It didn't sound too bad, but tonight was just one night. Maybe all he needed was just some sleep and a chance to recover from tonight.

So alas, he shook his head no. She looked disappointed at her front door as he made his way back to his car. He was soft. Soft as fucking pudding. He was Bella Swan's little Puddin' from La Push, the Puddin' she'd never, _ever_ visit unless he was looking to get high from her stash or get off from her body, and there was no way to shake that. At the same time, though, he didn't want to. In regards to Bella Swan, Jacob just didn't know what he wanted.

Bella finally went into her house, and it was then that Jacob comprehend that he actually knew this girl more than he ever intended to. He wished he had remained on a strictly mechanic basis with her. How could he ever shake off someone as peculiar as Bella Swan?

It was a shame that she wouldn't talk to him ever again, but tonight was just one night. Nothing more, nothing less. Anything else would be completely unbalanced.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** If this doesn't make sense right now, it will. Come Wednesday, chapter 15 will be up and some confusion will be resolved. Thoughts?_

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	15. XV

_**A/N:**_ _Sydney preread this. (Thanks, homie.) It's a short chapter, but I hope it's informative. It ends the first Bella arc._

 _I own no part of Twilight._

 _Enjoy!_

 **XV.**

 _the power of youth is on my mind_  
 _sunsets, small towns, i'm out of time_

* * *

Bella ran straight up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door shut. After she cracked open her window and then stuffed a towel underneath in the space between her door and the ground, she lit a joint and started pacing the room. She walked from her door to the window and then back again. Her nerves were going through the roof. She was practically sizzling.

 _God, I'm a fucking idiot. I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot, I'm a fucking idiot._

She was still high. She didn't even know why she was smoking again, but the more she thought about it, the more she freaked out. Maybe she needed it. Bella would never stop smoking, and she would never be totally loyal to Edward. She would never be loyal to anything or anyone or anywhere ever again after what she'd done.

It was easier to stay high, but she couldn't keep Edward off her mind.

 _I just fucked up so fucking bad._

She had gone to La Push. She had hung out with a kid from fucking La Push, the exact thing that Edward didn't want her to ever do. She'd made an ass out of herself during that date in La Push because she had been high. Prior to going to La Push for the date with the kid she'd made an ass out of herself in front of, she had met up with Edward's weed dealer in La Push to get a stash of weed of her own to get high by herself. And prior to that, she had stolen a wad of cash from Edward's house, _while he was sleeping_ , to pay for the weed that she hadn't shared.

She had only broken a thousand rules: stole money, went to La Push to get drugs with said money, did said drugs alone, went to La Push _again_ for a date, and didn't tell her boyfriend about any of it. As far as Edward knew, he wasn't short two hundred dollars, Bella hadn't been to La Push, she hadn't gotten high without him, and she hadn't acted inappropriately with a boy who wasn't him.

 _I'm so fucked up._

How she had acted with Jacob was half-fake, half-real. She had been truthful in that she did feel stuck (Why had she opened up to him like that? She didn't even know), but she hadn't meant a word about wanting to do him. Most of the more wild things she'd done and said were just so he would never want to go out with her again and Charlie would be effectively off of her back. She had only hoped it worked, but now it didn't matter.

Now that she knew she had dug herself into an even bigger hole, it was time for her to leave. Even if she stayed and was truthful with Edward, she would have to leave because he would hate her too much. She and Edward were over. They were just fucking over. He didn't know about her affairs now, but he would definitely figure it out soon. He was quick, but she could be quicker when she had to be.

She just had to pick up the pieces before he could do it himself.

 _Fuck me._

Bella quickly changed into blue jeans, a gray t-shirt, and black sneakers as she called Q. (Another rule she'd broken: looked into Edward's phone when he was sleeping.) She even put the necklace with the ring back on. It'd be the last thing she would let go of regarding Edward. She could steal all his money and smoke all the weed in the world without him, but she wouldn't give that ring up.

Quil didn't answer the phone the first two calls, but the third time was the charm.

"What's up?" he asked, his voice easygoing.

"How tight are you with Edward?" she asked as she buttoned up her jeans, her phone between her ear and her shoulder.

"I just sell him weed," he said. "So not very."

"Well, I need you to not say anything to him when—if—he asks about me," she told him. "I'm leaving town soon—like, really soon, tonight soon—and he might ask you about me when he figures out he's missing some money, but at the same time, he doesn't know that I know you."

"Okay..." he murmured. "I'm not really following here."

"Just don't tell him I went to La Push," she said impatiently. "And don't ever fucking tell him I bought weed from you."

"Okay," he said, affirmative. "It was nice doing business with you, Bella."

"Thanks, Q. But could you tell me one thing?"

"What?"

"Why do you go by Q?"

"My name's Quil," he told her.

"That's still one syllable," she reminded him as she tied her shoes. "Why don't you just go by Quil?"

"It's a family name," he said. "Now run."

She hung up, slightly satisfied with knowing that tidbit of information. After she flushed her joint down the toilet and she sprayed Febreze around her entire bedroom, she called her stepfather. Phil, her mother Renee's new husband of just over a year, still felt guilty for his treatment of Bella after they learned she had depression three years ago, so he was still trying to make it up to her because he felt that owed her something.

He answered the phone on the first ring. "Hey, Bella, are you okay?"

"Yeah, Phil," she said, putting on a glum voice to generate more guilt. "I just... I need to get out of Forks. Do you think you could transfer some money over to my account? I'm coming home."

"Does Charlie know?"

"Yeah," she lied. "He thinks it'd be better for me go, too. I'll pay you back, I swear. I just need the money for a cab and an airline ticket."

Phil paused for a little while. She could hear him tapping at his phone screen.

"Okay," he finally said. "I just put some money in your checking account. Spend wisely."

"Thanks, Phil. Love you." _I should've been an actress._

"I'll see you when you come home."

Bella hung up and checked the balance in her checking account. Phil had just transferred eight hundred dollars to her.

After packing up all her belongings, safely hiding the weed, and booking the airline ticket, Bella called a cab to Port Angeles and anxiously waited.

 _You guys need some distance._

Charlie's words rang in her head, echoing and echoing all the way from Forks to Port Angeles to Phoenix.

She couldn't help but save herself from the guilt and embarrassment that had come with betraying Edward. She still loved him, but something inside of her would never be fixed. Her impulsiveness would never be muted no matter how hard he loved her back, and it killed her more than anything. She would never be stable and she wished she could be in his shoes just once to know what it was like.

She would miss him again—she'd miss him like crazy, just like she always had. She would miss heaven on Earth, and the orange sky sunsets viewed from his glass walls in his huge house. She would miss her body against his and his smoke against her lips. She would miss him telling her she was beautiful and worthy and perfect even if she would never believe it.

And once he stopped being angry that she had betrayed him so horribly, he would miss her, too. She could see the next few months already: cold, full of read and unreturned text messages, relapse after relapse. She was fine with hurting herself again as long as she didn't have to continue hurting him. That was what mattered. Running would hurt now, but it wouldn't hurt him forever. Because their lives were so aligned no matter how busy he was and their love was so eternal no matter how awful she was, they would find each other again. She knew they would. She was a traitor, but their love was forever.

She was always, always running. She ran from the truth, ran from her memories, and ran from the outcomes she would be forced to deal with. She just wasn't equipped for this world, wasn't ready to handle matters like a mature, stable adult. Maybe she'd never belong anywhere since she was always searching for something she couldn't reach. She belonged with Edward, but that was so part-time; it wouldn't be like this if she were more committed.

 _You guys need some distance._

Maybe her biggest issue was less of her needing distance from Edward and more of her needing distance from herself.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I probably won't update Friday because I have a few important things to take care of, and I need to focus all my extra time into those things. But I think it'll be fine; I update very often, anyway. This chapter concludes the first Bella arc, but she will be back very, very soon._

 _Take care,_

 _HS_


	16. XVI

**Part Three**

 **monachopsis:** the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.

* * *

 **XVI.**

 _i'm sorry but i fell in love tonight_  
 _i didn't mean to fall in love tonight_  
 _you're looking like you fell in love tonight_  
 _could we pretend that we're in love?_

* * *

Leah always caught Emily in the worst of times. She knew it was becoming a habit; she just didn't know if it was a good or a bad one. Divine intervention or horrible timing.

Emily thought that calling out for help was a sign of weakness, so she had never called Leah when she was suffering. Only pure luck and probably some familial instinct were involved. Leah had just been over like the usual when she had found Emily on her bathroom floor of her parents' house in Neah Bay, crying because she had miscarried. And hadn't been invited when she had found Emily laying her bed a couple springs ago, bleeding at the wrists because she had cut herself again.

Finding Emily in times of weakness was a good habit. It had to be. Leah was a beacon for Emily. They both knew this because it was Leah who had been there for Emily when she had miscarried her second child at fourteen weeks, the child she had actually been ready to have. It was Leah who had decided to pay Emily a visit today, to make sure she was still taking care of herself, and just so happened to find her on the cold bathroom floor of her new house in La Push.

Emily didn't deny the hug this time. She embraced Leah like the sister she should have had and sobbed her heart out, not worrying if she looked ugly or not.

She had always been weird about crying in the same way that she was weird about calling out for help; she thought it made her look weak. But it was now that she knew it was okay to ask for help, and it was especially okay to cry. It was perfectly okay to cry. It wasn't a sign of weakness or even softness. It wasn't a sign of giving up or being overwhelmed, either. From birth, it had always held the same meaning: it meant that she was alive.

"Sam and I were so ready for this baby," she said into Leah's shoulder. "We got a new house with a baby room and everything. He stopped drinking and got a job and I fucked this up. Lee, I'm only nineteen and I've fucked up so bad."

Leah just held onto Emily, and it was then that she knew Emily was too good for the world. She had been pure and talented and bright before something happened to make it all fall out of place. Now she was depressed and self-loathing and knowledgeable of nothing but sadness. How was that fair? Emily was thinking the same thing.

"I've never hurt anyone," Emily sobbed. "I've never done anything to anyone, yet all this bullshit happens to me. I should just give the fuck up."

"You can say that all you want," Leah said, "but you're not gonna give up. And I know I tell you this a lot, but you have to keep it moving. You have to take care of yourself."

Emily badly needed the time to think before she moved on, but that step towards self-care wasn't in Leah's nature. Leah didn't know what it was like to pause and evaluate her feelings; as far as she knew, she had no more feelings. Leah was as heartless as can be. Moving forward without a reflection was all she knew.

Emily appreciated the gesture, though. It just didn't do much to help her. "Thanks, Lee."

"No problem, Em. It's no problem."

* * *

Sam Uley had never been a man of many words, but Emily could tell when he truly had nothing to say.

When she told him about her miscarriage, he was silent. What could he say? What was he supposed to say to fix anything? _All of this means nothing now_?

They stood in the living room of their new house and La Push, and even as the house was big, it felt even bigger. It was huge and lonely and all sorts of hot and cold. They didn't know what or how to think anymore.

Silent, they got into his blue pickup truck and drove out. They needed to escape the badlands for a little while; it was caving in on them. This was when they still thought it was a physical place as opposed to a constant mental state.

Bright highway signs flashed across Sam's focused eyes as Emily stared at him. When she registered the fact that he wasn't a stranger, she rested her head upon his shoulder. It was strong and solid, just like him.

She tried to not let it show that she was scared of them and everything they had going on for them, that she was scared of what they were running afraid from. She focused on the road, just like he did. In reality, he didn't know where they were going, either. He was good at acting like he knew everything, though. Since his father left Sam and his mom, he'd had to grow up fast. He still had to be tough and a know-it-all and supportive all at once, all the time. He didn't know how to stop.

With nothing but beer for days and the keys to the truck, they quietly entered their motel room that was far, far away from La Push. It was Room 93, and it was on the edge of the world.

They sat on the pullout couch and drank in the dim light. She didn't bother swiping her poorly cut, nearly grown-out bangs out of her eyes, and he played with her long, straight, black hair like they were teenagers again, like innocence was no longer a ghost of what they used to be.

She wanted nothing more than to feel his lips against her skin, and when he finally kissed her, she tasted nothing but worry and fear and lots of alcohol. She tasted everything that they were and everything they were going to be.

He moved her bangs out of her eyes so he could look at her in the dim lighting of the motel room.

"Wanna start over?"

She remembered the last time he asked her that, and she still nodded.

"I'd like that."

* * *

She was dancing in her tube socks in their motel room like nothing was wrong.

Three days after the first night, they came back to Room 93. It was their new beacon, just outside the badlands, and it was the safe place they went to when they were scared or stressed out.

Emily continued to dance and dance, drinking beer after beer. Whenever she was with Sam, she always turned back to her old habits. He was the worst damn influence, and he never even had to say anything; he'd just give her one look and everything she knew would be out the door, running far away from her.

It was cute at first. In fact, it was amorous. She had fallen back in love with Sam because after a few beers and temporarily forgotten memories, he became the inquisitive yet fun guy she had loved since high school. He could never fully let himself go, but when he did it the best he could, Emily knew, and she was in love.

And when she was drunk with him, she didn't hate herself as much. When she looked down at her left wrist, the scars were blurred. And when he wasn't obsessed with hating himself; he was in love, too.

"Let's just not go back," he told her that second night.

"To La Push?"

"Yeah. Fuck La Push."

"Fuck it."

They came back, though. Even though Room 93 was a beacon, La Push was an even stronger one. They couldn't deny it even if they tried. People were starting to worry, too.

When they got stressed out or worried at home, they tried to recreate the carefree atmosphere of Room 93 to their house in La Push, and it worked at the beginning. The beginning had been just as beautiful.

Emily still loved Sam. She still did, drunk and sober and everything in between, but especially drunk.

The only thing worse than loving Sam was loving his bad habits just as much. Emily should have known they would deteriorate from the first time she ever escaped with him to Room 93. Drinking had been fun, but the party had to end somewhere, and the love wouldn't last forever. Nothing lasted forever with Emily; it was her fault for testing that. The number of times they retreated to Room 93 didn't matter because even if they slept on new sheets, they still had the same old problems.

Sometime in November was when they started to fall out of love and into the darker depths of who they really were.

With time, their carefree nights with laughs and secrets and booze had turned into forgotten groceries which turned into forgotten condoms which turned into forgotten bills. She would never forget the panic.

Over the course of two months, half-empty glasses had turned to dropped glasses which turned into glasses shattering at a hundred miles against the wall. Emily had the scars to prove it, and on her worse days, when the memories permeated her mind, drunk or sober or anything in between, she could feel the shards piercing into her all over again. Sometimes they hurt more in her memories than they did the first time, when it physically happened.

Sam was fond of running off when he felt guilty. They were both cowards, but Emily was stunned and static, and Sam kept moving. That was just in his nature. She tried not to take it personally whenever he disappeared for days on end, but it never worked out well because it was so inevitable for her to blame herself.

The third night that Sam was gone after the glass accident, she knew she had her mind made up this time. Emily ripped the strings off her cello and threw all the physical notes and excerpts of her novel into the garbage. She had six different notebooks with hundreds of different scenes in each of them, and they would soon be gone.

 _Nothing is the same anymore_ , she realized. _So why am I still pretending?_

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _Sorry for disappearing like that. School's been crazy. I hope I can update again soon. Chapter 18 is a personal favorite._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	17. XVII

_**A/N:**_ _I own no part of Twilight._

 **XVII.**

 _i'm laughing, i'm crying_  
 _it feels like i'm dying_

* * *

Leah crossed her long legs over Kim's as they settled into the couch on a chilly November evening. Kim had just popped _Selena_ into the VCR, and it was time to start Leah's nineteenth birthday right, or at least the best way they could. So far, it felt like any other night.

Cramped in her little living room, Leah hadn't expected more people than just Kim and Emily being there, but as her eyes crossed over the room, she realized that just about everyone was here, and she really shouldn't have put Kim up to planning her party. She appreciated the gesture, but it didn't help. The party was only pitiful so far.

To Leah's right, Paul sat in the armchair, staring long and hard at the box television in the middle of the room. He had recently taken an interest in Selena Quintanilla, since she had been a real Mexican and all, but he still paid Leah no mind. Seth and Embry sat on the floor next to Paul, talking amongst themselves over cans of soda. Their voices were low and serious. When Leah looked over to her left, past Kim, she saw Jacob sitting on the edge of the couch, as far away from Kim as physically possible while remaining on the couch. He had this strange aversion to her, and Leah didn't know why, but Jake was kind of an idiot, anyway. He stared at the corner of the room, over at the huge bouquet of helium balloons Kim had gotten Leah earlier today. All Leah was waiting for was Emily. She knew Sam wasn't going to come, and she made sure Kim hadn't invited Quil because she was still angry with him.

For a house as occupied as hers, Leah sure felt damn lonely. It didn't help that Kim, who was still her best friend despite her constant annoyances, played on her phone in the pocket of her oversized hoodie. The bright LED light bothered Leah to no end, and the worst thing was that she knew exactly who Kim was texting.

"Don't let Jared ruin my birthday," Leah told Kim.

Kim immediately turned off the screen of her phone and looked over at Leah. "Quit freaking out," she said. "We're only watching _Selena_ for the millionth time."

 _Don't you learn anything?_ Leah thought. _That boy's been hurting you from day one._

Leah couldn't believe her best friend was still so stupid. Kim never learned, and that was because she was so nice. For as long as she had known Leah, Kim had remained totally complacent. It killed Leah on the inside.

"What's Jared even been up to?" Embry wondered aloud. For a second, Leah had forgotten what his speaking voice was like. She was used to him being silent.

"Clearly sexting Kim," Paul said.

"I thought you guys broke up last June," Seth added. "You know, at the beach when he called you a bitch."

Kim gave Leah a look that said _Well, look what the fuck you've started._

Leah shrugged. _It's not like you invited all these people or anything. And it's not like it isn't true._

Before Kim could defend Jared and his ugly behavior like she usually insisted on doing instead of defending herself, the front door opened. Everyone looked in the same direction, and Emily entered the house, holding a huge rectangular box. Quil followed her with plastic bags in his hands. They were greeted by everyone in the living room.

"Hey, Em," Leah called. "Whatcha got there?"

Emily smiled as she made her way to the kitchen. "You'll find out."

Leah followed her to the small kitchen, ignoring Quil, who set the plastic bags down on the counter. He went back to the living room, and Leah cornered Emily.

"What's Quil here for?" she asked her cousin.

"He's just trying to help out," Emily replied. "He's been going through a lot lately."

Leah crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't give a fuck what the guy's been going through."

"You're cold as ice."

It wasn't the first time she'd heard that. "I know."

"And isn't it better that he's here with us instead of up in Neah Bay with Claire?" Emily raised her eyebrows.

Leah sighed. "True."

Emily squeezed her arm. "Now lighten up, birthday girl. Don't make this into a pity party."

Emily had brought food and a big, chocolate cake since Kim had supplied the decorations and company. Leah quickly blew out her candles in the presence of everyone, but she felt so alone. She didn't wish for anything genuine, and at 5:03, she realized she had been nineteen for a whole minute. Her mom called her from her job at 5:04, crying about how her baby was so old now and how it felt like "just yesterday" when she pushed her out into the world.

Leah wished her parents could be there for her tonight. She needed more of them and less of the people who currently occupied her living room. These people weren't here because they wanted to be—they were here because they had to be.

She now realized she wasn't supposed to be here in La Push with the same old people doing the same old thing. She was supposed to be a freshman at UPenn, playing basketball. She especially hated herself for letting her cockiness (and Jared) get to her.

After the cake was cut, somebody decided to turn on music via boom box, effectively shutting down Leah's millionth viewing of _Selena_. It was deep trap music that was playing, the type of music that nobody could really dance to, so it must have been Quil who put it on. He had no idea what old-school meant; he was always on the new shit. So everybody just stood and sat around and drank soda and talked. These people saw each other almost every day; what could there possibly be that was new to discuss?

Leah had been trying to avoid Quil the entire time, but as she talked with Kim on the couch, trying to convince her to not pursue a long-distance relationship with Jared while he was in Seattle, Quil came up to them and interrupted Leah's persuasion. He pulled his impish grin and leaned in next to her.

"'Sup, ladies?"

Kim was polite since she was a good person and all. "Nothing much, Quil. How's it going?"

He shrugged. "Just chillin.' Happy birthday, Leah."

"Thanks for remembering," Leah said sincerely.

His smiled widened. "You know me."

Leah lacked the patience for him regardless of his fake politeness. She focused her attention back to Kim. "Anyway, there's no reason for you to keep being with him. Long-distance isn't worth it."

"No offense, but you don't know anything about relationships," Kim said.

"Yes, I do," Leah countered, slightly offended. "I've seen a lot."

Quil still hung around. "Kim, are you still trying to see Jared even though he's at college?"

Kim nodded. "I didn't know this was becoming everyone else's business, but yeah."

"It's a _party,_ Kim. That's when everyone's business comes out," Emily said, approaching the couch. She pointed towards the empty space between Leah and Kim. "You mind?"

Kim folded her legs under her and moved back. "Go ahead."

"This party is the opposite of lit," Leah said under her breath. Emily ignored her.

"Long-distance isn't even worth it," Quil told Kim, shaking his head.

"See," Leah said. "Even Quil knows that."

"And what would you know about that?" Kim asked Quil.

"Me and Claire aren't working out."

"That's more of an age thing," Leah said. "Not a long-distance thing."

"What happened?" Kim asked Quil. "With you and Claire?"

"She started tenth grade," Leah said with a roll of her eyes. "Then she realized she's not a complete idiot, so she doesn't wanna date a fucking drug dealer."

Emily was getting out something from her bag, but then she paused and looked up with a concerned look. "You're still dealing, Quil?"

"Semi-regularly," he said.

"Just don't pull any shit in my house," Leah told him.

"Wouldn't try it, Lee," he said, his tone a little bitter.

Leah looked over to Emily, and she had books in her lap. The pile included works of Kate Chopin and Sylvia Plath. Leah caught a glimpse of _The Awakening_ and _The Bell Jar. S_ ad white girl classics. Leah thought of Emily's old habits and wanted to throw up. She'd have to say something to her later.

Seth came up to Leah and tapped her shoulder. "Hey, I'll see you later," he told her as he headed to the door. Embry followed behind him.

"Where are you going?" Leah asked Seth.

"Embry's house."

"For what? You know Mom's gonna be mad."

"Mom doesn't care," he said. "We both know that."

"She'll care tonight."

"Look, Embry really needs me over at his house. We're kind of working on something important."

"Whatever, then," Leah said. "It's your ass."

He and Embry left. Paul and Jacob followed soon after.

"Boring already?" Leah asked Paul. They were neither on bad terms nor good ones; they no longer had any terms. It was like he was trying to erase their history by merely ignoring her, and she hated it. She was fond of still talking, still acting like they hadn't fallen out because she _hated_ silence. She hated the idea of falling out more than anything because she hated feeling regretful.

But it was all over now. They had nothing. Now he treated her like he would treat anyone else. He treated her like he had never sought safety in her, likely to protect his own pride since she was so good at destroying it. If she didn't love him as much as she did, she'd see him the same way everyone else saw him: as a jerk.

"Food's gone," he told her as some sort of half-assed explanation. He didn't even wish her a happy birthday. She bit the inside of her cheek, tasting blood.

 _I fucking hate you._

He and Jacob departed, leaving the girls and Quil, who quickly ran out after Paul and Jacob with his boom box in hand, trying to catch a ride home.

"This is the worst fucking birthday," Leah said to nobody in particular as she turned up the TV. _Selena_ was still on, and Leah's least favorite part was playing. Selena didn't catch the white rose a fan threw to her onstage, and Leah knew the end was near. She felt so sick that she couldn't even eat her slice of cake.

Even though she had seen the movie too many times, Leah couldn't force herself to watch the ending without crying.

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ _I'll update soon. Heads up: Bella x Edward. (I promise he won't be around that much. I don't like him, either. He's very temporary in this story, though.)_

 _HS_


	18. XVIII

_**A/N:** I own no part of Twilight. Sydney proofread this (if not, I would have gotten away with misspelling "Christmas"). This chapter goes back to Bella. If you're familiar with some old works of mine, you might catch some shoutouts to Remedium and Destructive Desire. I've written so much that I'm allowed to reference myself. Let me live. _

_I enjoyed writing this chapter, and I hope you enjoy reading it._

 **XVIII.**

 _you say you're going through changes_  
 _everyday it seems your life is up and down_

* * *

The following Tuesday after Leah's birthday, Bella landed in Port Angeles once again. She didn't have any nail polish to pick at, and she didn't expect any bliss to come from her cell phone. She didn't even touch the ring on the necklace rubbing against her chest.

Charlie picked her up, having forgiven her for running off last August. He was easygoing, but still concerned. He knew she had been going through changes for the past couple of years. He knew his nineteen-year-old daughter was sick and had trouble being consistent. It was ugly and embarrassing, but he knew. He didn't know about her other habits, but that didn't matter. Those habits wouldn't draw sympathy.

Even though she came alive in the summer, she preferred autumn and winter. In Forks, winter never ended, and she was able to hide behind thick sweaters and thicker hair. She didn't want the sun or anybody else to see her when her scars were this ugly. And everybody had tired eyes in the winter; she wouldn't be the only one this time. She could blend in because melancholia was the way of life around here, and it was year-long.

The car ride from Port Angeles to Forks was especially long now. Charlie wasn't a coward, so he filled the silence with heavy conversation.

"What was wrong with Phoenix?" he asked.

Her voice was bleak. She couldn't pretend anymore. "Nothing. Why?"

"I just don't see why you'd come back to Forks is all." He had never liked to beat around the bush when the matter was serious. All his awkwardness was nonexistent now.

She could hardly put up a fight. "Why's that?"

"I thought you hated it here," he explained. "You only went to work and saw Ed—" He stopped himself, but it was far too late. "You know who. You didn't do much else. I didn't think you'd like it here enough to come back."

 _I don't like Forks at all_ , she wanted to say. _I just hate Phoenix._ She had spent all her time in Arizona with her old friends, but there was no use in seeking comfort in people who had homes, who had somewhere to be and knew where they belonged. They had no comfort to offer to someone as misguided as Bella. And with Renee and Phil moving to Florida soon, Bella just couldn't do it. She couldn't force herself to start fresh and forget, as easy as it could possibly be for someone as lost as her. She hated Forks, but she didn't want to be anywhere else, and that was what was going to kill her in the end.

"Mom's moving to Florida," she told Charlie. "I don't wanna go."

"She told me," he replied. "I just... I thought you'd like Florida. Thought you'd appreciate the sun."

She actually would appreciate the sun, but she knew that if she moved to Florida, she'd be trapped. She couldn't run off to Forks as easily when things got tough, and lately, Forks had turned into a beacon for her.

"I guess I just got used to Forks," she told him.

He sighed. "Don't we all."

* * *

"Mom, you don't have to throw me a party," Leah said. As she helped Sue carry bags and bags of food into the house from the car, though, she knew it was far too late.

"It's my only day off in a while," Sue said for the hundredth time today, Tuesday. "And my baby turned nineteen. It's my day, too."

Leah rolled her eyes. _It's my day, too._ She said that every year. Leah followed her mother into the house.

"Who's coming tonight?" she asked.

Sue went into the kitchen. "All your friends, and I think your Auntie Aria and Junior. Oh, and Charlie Swan."

Leah sighed. Sue never got many days off, but when she did, she was always at Charlie Swan's house. She didn't know what her mother saw in him. He was a nice person and all, but since Harry's death, Sue spent more time with Charlie than she did with her own kids. Leah had never said anything about it before, but it was slowly and surely killing her now.

"You're always with Charlie," Leah said, trying to keep her tone from sounding accusing.

"And?"

"Are you guys dating or something?"

Sue laughed. "Child, _no_. But he _is_ kinda cute, isn't he?"

Leah frowned. "Next month will be two years since Dad died."

Sue's face fell serious. "What, you think I forgot or something?"

Leah shrugged.

"Me and Charlie have nothing going on," Sue said. "And even if we did, it's none of your business, anyway."

"I'm your kid."

"Listen to me." She took Leah's hand. "Nothing's going on. And besides, he has a daughter who just got home. She's coming to your party, too."

"I didn't know that," Leah replied. "Is she little or something?"

"She's your age."

"You never told me about her."

"She's from the Southwest," Sue said. "New Mexico, I think. Her name's Bella."

"Why'd she move here, then?"

Sue let go of Leah and shrugged as she put food away into cupboards, and Leah leaned against the counter, facing her. "She's having a hard time right now," Sue said, "so she needs to live with her dad."

"Oh, God," Leah breathed. "That means she's crazy, huh?"

"She's not _crazy_ , Lee-Lee. She's going through a lot of changes."

"We all go through puberty."

"Quit being rude. You don't know the girl."

"You're right," Leah said. "And I also don't know why she's coming to my party if I don't know her."

"Has anyone ever told you you've got a bitchy attitude?"

"But we already knew that, Mom."

Sue rolled her eyes. She looked just like Leah, or it was the other way around.

"Where's your brother?" Sue asked.

"I don't know. Probably at Embry's."

"What have they even been doing? Seth's always with Embry."

"I hear they've been building an atomic bomb."

"Funny. Now go clean up the living room."

* * *

Leah's second nineteenth birthday party was a lot like her first one, just without all the cussing because there were parents in the house. Quil was also gone. The Clearwater residence wasn't big enough to hold everyone there, but they made it work. They always did.

Charlie and Bella Swan had been at the party for ten minutes before Leah was introduced to Bella. It was Jacob Black, of all people, who introduced them.

"Leah, this is Bella. Bella, this is Leah, Sue's oldest kid."

Bella, who actually didn't want to be there since she didn't know Leah, smiled a small, polite smile, not showing her teeth. Bella was average to Leah, but not entirely ugly. She had plain brown hair and a plain face with plain features and plain pale skin. The only thing that really stuck out about her was that she had incredibly tired, weary eyes. She and Leah shook hands, and things got very awkward very fast.

"I'm sorry about your dad," was what Bella blurted out.

Leah raised an eyebrow. "Don't worry about it," she said. She turned to Jacob and gave him a look. _What's this girl on?_

Leah avoided Bella after that. She stuck with Emily and Kim like she usually did. She held a safe, meaningless conversation with Paul for a little while like they were platonic friends, like they hadn't seen each other naked before. She tried not to think of him naked, but it didn't work. She wanted to escape the annoying, hellish party and go somewhere—anywhere—with him. She knew Paul was single, yet she felt that she was still at second place, and second just was not the same.

She turned back to the circle of friends sitting around in the living room, and Jacob was speaking. He was being so extroverted all of a sudden. Bella was at his side, tuned in like everybody else.

"Our mudpies were _sick_ ," he said.

"Wait, you and Bella know each other?" Embry asked.

He turned to Bella and smiled, remembering their date. It had been a mess, but a good time regardless. "Oh, yeah, we go way back."

"Are you staying up here, Bella?" Seth asked.

She nodded. "Yeah," she said humbly.

" _Awesome_ ," Seth said.

Leah turned to Kim and motioned her to come in closer. She cupped her hand around her ear and leaned in.

"Did I miss something?" Leah asked. "Because I don't recall the new girl ever showing traits of a personality."

Kim leaned in to whisper in Leah's ear. "She's new and white, so she's interesting by default. Like a shiny new toy."

Leah looked over at Bella. It was all too true.

* * *

Not much time had passed when Bella and Charlie decided to head home. Charlie had to go to work the next day and Bella had to catch up on whatever sleep she claimed to have lost. Sue spent an extra long time saying goodbye to Charlie after trying to get him to stay for "just one more beer." Leah tried to ignore that and focused on saying goodbye to Bella.

She leaned in to give Bella a hug out of pure politeness since it was the way she had been raised. Bella didn't really know how to react to it, so it was as awkward as Leah expected it to be. For a second, she wondered if Bella had been raised in the jungle.

As they hugged, Leah murmured in Bella's ear, "My mom doesn't actually want to fuck your dad."

Bella let go and looked at the other girl with wide eyes. " _What_?"

Leah just shook her head. "Don't worry about it. It was nice meeting you, Becca."

"Bella."

"I'm sorry?"

"My name's Bella," she corrected. "You called me Becca."

"Oh, sorry." A fake smile was plastered on Leah's face. "Nice meeting you, _Bella._ " She didn't mean it.

"You, too, Leah." She didn't mean it, either.

She promised herself she'd never return to La Push.

* * *

Bella stayed remote and indoors until the night before Thanksgiving, when she went shopping. She and Charlie had both grown so unstable; they had forgotten that the holiday was coming up so quickly. Bella didn't want to ask Jacob if he and his father were celebrating Thanksgiving; she thought it would be embarrassing on behalf of her ancestors.

So she went to the grocery store—the big one in Forks—to go shopping. She didn't want to alienate Charlie any more than she might have already done. They would have a good, traditional Thanksgiving with a turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie and a parade and football on TV.

She just wished she knew where to start. Slowly pushing a shopping cart that felt a little too heavy despite being completely empty, she wandered aimlessly throughout the store. She had her headphones plugged into her phone and stuck in her ears as she searched for basic Thanksgiving shopping lists, making sure she didn't mess it up, but the music only made her feel lethargic and she hardly got any service in the store. She was just going to have to wing it.

Moving carefully as a vision in a green flannel jacket and blue jeans, she went through every aisle, looking for everything. She didn't seem to have a budget; she also just didn't care. She picked up every Thanksgiving side dish known to man, and even some extra things. She didn't have to be totally traditional.

She was stopped in an aisle and took out one earbud, looking for stuffing, when she reminded herself that she didn't have to be totally traditional. She hated stuffing, even when it was a side and not completely bastardizing the turkey, but she still thoughtfully stared at countless boxes because if Charlie was like everyone else in the country, he liked stuffing. There were just too many options, though. Would he settle for traditional stuffing? Bella may never know.

"There are too many options," a familiar voice said from Bella's left.

Bella looked up and turned. She felt her heart drop.

It was none other than Edward Cullen.

He was just the way she had left him last August: oblivious and clean-cut. He had shaved recently, she could tell, and he looked like he had just showered. His cheeks were red against his pale face. He wore her favorite casual outfit of his: a simple ensemble of dark blue jeans and a gray shirt and her favorite black jacket. He was the same as ever.

It was Bella who was different. She, clad in her dumpy flannel jacket and old jeans and ratty sneakers, had gotten worse. She had let herself fall off. The last time she'd done her hair up really nice or dressed in a flattering way was for him, last August. While she had been away, she'd stopped caring. Now she was tired eyes and sallow cheeks and raw lips and bony hips. She just couldn't force herself to be embarassed, though. He'd seen the best of her; he'd seen the worst of her. This was somewhere in the middle.

Despite her appearance, he saw the real her. He gave her a crooked smile, the classic one that she had fallen for from the very, very beginning of _them_ and everything that had evolved into _them_. She had been freezing, but that crooked smile set her ablaze.

"Happy Thanksgiving," he said.

* * *

While she had always been the type to drop everything to please him, he wasn't the same in that way. When Edward had set plans, he didn't change them. Not for himself, not for Bella, not for anybody. His constant punctuality and consistency drove her crazy because she could never be that way. She was always moving, always changing, even when she was static like right now, and the fact that he liked to stay in his comfortable spot really got to her. It made her feel inadequate. Just because she didn't _mind_ being tossed around to suit his schedule didn't mean she preferred to be.

Edward promised her that after the holiday, they would talk. He was a sophomore at Dartmouth right now, and he had things to focus on. They would talk at Christmas, but not now. He shrunk her down like he normally did. He folded and molded and crumpled her up into less like a person, but more like a detail, or en event, or a meeting. The day he came home from Dartmouth for Christmas would be the day they officially talked.

She was used to being shrunken, though, so she didn't mind. She had given him the power to be so effective, so now she was paying for it. She had allowed him to cut her to pieces and watch her disintegrate, so the only thing she could do was take it.

 _"You are so small."_

 _"Then let me grow."_

 _Fucking bullshit._

But they spoke when he came home for Christmas. She was the first person he talked to because she took up a specific time slot in his busy schedule, and he was punctual. Punctual to a damn T. He hadn't always been this way. He used to accept accidental meetings.

She cleaned herself up this time. He didn't mind the disheveled, one-hundred-percent-completely-done-caring version of her because he knew that it existed, but he preferred someone he could take out, even to a place he didn't like going to.

She played with the ring on the necklace as they sat at a dinner table at her favorite restaurant in Port Angeles. He thought the location was tacky and reflected on his poor skills as a boyfriend, since he had definitely shown her much more beautiful places than this in an attempt to turn her into somebody as worldly as he was, but she didn't care. This restaurant was where their first real date had taken place, before he had become so oriented in money and traveling and planning and _more._

Her fingers wouldn't leave the ring alone. He watched her intensely.

"Are you still mad?" she asked him.

"Are you sorry?"

She knew what he wanted her to say. "I'm not sorry," she said, "but I'm still ashamed."

"Well, I'm not mad," he told her, "but I'm still upset."

"Why aren't you mad? Edward, I lie and stole and pretty much cheated and wouldn't fess up to any of it. I ran off instead. I'd hate me."

"I could never hate you, Bella," he said. His green eyes weren't focused on her; they were searching for something in the table lantern between them. He was looking for something to say that wouldn't hurt her feelings.

"Never?"

"No. But I'm tired of being mad."

She nodded. "Okay."

He looked up at her and leaned forward. With their faces close, he shut his eyes and brought his hand up to her hair. He breathed her in now and breathed out the bad times. He couldn't afford to have them on his mind, and neither could she.

"I'll change, I swear," she whispered.

He kissed her for the first time since August, and they were back to square one.

"All these things will change."

* * *

Christmas Day. It looked like any other day.

Even though she swore she would change, her depression got the best of her. It was especially bad now since she had stopped taking her prescribe medication for it just after Thanksgiving, probably when she needed it the most. It never did much for her, anyway.

So she spent today in a haze; she hardly spoke to Charlie after he gave her a sweater that didn't even fit her, and she sure as shit didn't text Edward back. When Charlie had turned to Billy and Jacob Black because Bella was just too damn boring and depressing to be around, she turned to her old habits. She thought she told Charlie she'd meet up with them later, but she couldn't remember now.

Christmas Day didn't feel like any other day. It felt worse.

Even though she wasn't on good or bad or _any_ terms with Quil, she still had her ways. The badlands always had corners for her to crawl in and be consumed by. The badlands loved people like her. Weed wasn't really enough for her now. Now, she took pills. She was still into downers; these days, it was getting harder and harder to sleep and stay asleep. Valium was her best fucking friend since her antidepressants had never done any good for her.

 _A Christmas Story_ played on television that morning. It would play all day. She'd seen the movie only a hundred times, so she spent most of her intoxicated time absentmindedly staring out the window.

It was cloudy outside, and it was then that she realized she'd never see a white Christmas. That was only meant for the movies.

 _Make it stop._

Bella wore nothing but a hoodie and underwear as she curled up on the couch in the living room with two Valium pills in her left hand and a flask of vodka in her right. She was far aware of the fact that every decision she made was a bad one, but it was only solidified when she caught ahold of her cell phone. She called Edward as she laid on the couch. She wore black panties and a black hoodie without a bra underneath, her skin looking paler and colder than ever. Her dark hair was wild and all around her.

Her drugs were what she wanted, but he was what she needed. At least that was what she said into the phone before hanging up. She knew he wouldn't make time for her; she hadn't asked him in advance. But she sadly, deeply, truly wished he would.

 _Please, please make it stop._

When she was at the halfway point between tipsy and actually drunk, she dragged herself upstairs to take a bath. She locked the door behind her. She needed to wash him off of her; when she looked down at her thighs, all she saw were the prints of his hands. They trailed along her body like kisses, but they were as shameful as the prints of hits. His kisses and hits felt almost the same to her.

 _MAKE IT STOP._

She needed to burn him off, scald herself until she was fresh and new and whole. She only felt herself growing colder and dirtier and emptier as she stood on the tiles. So she turned on the water knob all the way to the left, to the hottest it could go, and filled the bathtub almost entirely.

She stripped down to nothing and kicked her clothes to the corner. Trying not to catch a glance of her naked body in the mirror, she set her flask and phone down on the cold toilet seat cover next to the tub.

She dipped a toe into the scalding water, and then both legs, and then slowly sat down, not minding the burn. She was freezing. She shifted so she could sink a little. Steaming hot water spilled over the edge of the tub, splattering against the off-white tiles. It didn't matter to her. Nothing really did.

 _Make it stop._

She grabbed her phone off the toilet seat and scrolled through it, looking for music. A couple years ago, back when Edward had only started to stop being spontaneous, he had made them a playlist for when they had sex. They lived by it whenever they were together. Even though he was very organized and plan-oriented, she loved having sex with him. She loved sex, period. And she listened to their playlist on her own more than anything. He had carefully crafted it, and like everything else he did, it was in good taste. She played it in its correct order. It was the same damn songs, but it was lovely.

She got her kicks like he—or at least a more spontaneous version of him—would. She drank and felt, felt and drank. She didn't mind her own touch; sometimes she preferred it. Soon, she was numb everywhere, which was her addiction's fault and not hers.

The drugs were what she wanted, but he was what she needed. Wasn't it clear?

She couldn't get him off her mind and she couldn't get herself off, either. She felt rushed and slow and hot and cold all at once. She didn't know what to do, so she kept her fingers between her legs instead and kept him on her mind.

" _You are so small."_

" _Then let me grow."_

How could he have said that while singlehandedly shrinking her just by being in her presence?

* * *

New Year's Eve. She felt almost the same.

She dreaded the day because she felt inclined to kick old habits, but she never would. The only things she had dropped were her antidepressants.

Charlie was at work, and during the day, Edward came over. He had let her know he was coming, but she hadn't found the energy to look presentable. Not having bathed or washed her hair or consumed any real food besides the obligatory holiday treat since Christmas, she looked and felt like a trainwreck. He wore her favorite outfit on him again and his green eyes were honest. She wore her unwashed, unchanged pajamas and avoided eye contact. She had avoided any contact with him whatsoever since she'd last promised she'd change.

She shut the front door. They stood against the wall by the stairwell. He held his warm hands in her cold ones.

"I've been calling you," he said.

"I've been calling you, too."

"You called me on Christmas. You know how my family is when it comes to that."

She nodded. "Yeah."

"How have you been?" There was only a mile between them.

"I've been well," she lied. "You?"

"Worrying about you." It was a damn lie to her. "I thought you weren't going to go back to that, Bella. I thought you were going to stop disappearing."

"I didn't disappear," she said, shaking her head and letting go of his hands. "I've literally been _right here_ in my house. You were the one who didn't wanna make time to call."

"I already told you—"

"I know, I know," she sighed, running a hand through her hair. It was greasy, but she didn't care. "Your family. But you know I've been here and nowhere else. If you were so worried, then you should have visited."

"Well, I didn't," he said curtly. "So there's no going back."

"Okay."

He narrowed his eyes and leaned in. "Have you been drinking?"

"Why does—"

"Have you been drinking?" he repeated.

"Only a little bit," she said. She blinked slowly. "It's been boring around here."

"You know how I get about you doing that without me," he told her.

She folded her arms across her chest. "What, did you want me to share?"

He sneered. "You know it's not like that."

"Then what is it, Edward?" she demanded. "You get mad when I drink or smoke or do anything without you, but why does it matter? And don't say it's about safety, because I know it's not."

"It's about _us_ ," he said. "We're supposed to do those things together, Bella. You're disappearing on me again, and I can't handle it. You can't keep secrets from me anymore. That's why we broke up last time, and you're _so fucking aware of this._ Don't do this to us, Bella. Don't do it."

"The thing is, Edward," she began, "you're not even mad about secrets or whatever. You're fucking mad because of my depression and you don't know how to handle it. When you're getting hammered with me, it's so you can keep it in check. You don't know how to take it when I express even in the slightest way that I'm still struggling with depression so you just shut me up when you can. You don't want to help me—you just don't want me to fall apart in front of you."

"How could you say that I don't want to help you when I fucking _hate_ it when you drink alone?"

"Because that's not what it's about," she yelled. "You know me—you know me better than anyone else—but you're ashamed of it. You don't want me to drink or get high or do anything alone because you don't want to be there to clean up the mess when you find me. You're too fucking worried about getting your hands dirty by being with me, but fucking get this—I'm here. This is who the fuck I am."

His eyes were wild. He stared at her like she was crazy when in reality, this was just her in general. He just always tried to keep it on mute, but he couldn't hide it now. "So you're an addict?" he asked. "That's what you think I'm afraid of?"

"No," she lied, "but I _know_ you're afraid of my depression. I'm not perfect, Edward. I'm not anything you admire, and that's why you only like having me over when no one's around. That's why you take me everywhere in the state but you never want to have me over for dinner with your family, here in town. I fucking know it and I hate you for it."

"Then why did you say you would change?" he asked. "You told me all these things about you would change."

Tears burned her eyes. "I lied."

"You're so fucking difficult now." His voice was low.

"I've always been that way. You just didn't wanna see it."

They were silent, and even though she didn't like him at this given moment, she didn't want to let the silence hang in the air.

"Bella, this isn't going to work out anymore," was what he finally said.

"What do you mean?"

"We're done. We don't belong together. It's been that way from the start."

"So forever meant nothing to you?" Her voice was thick, and she was about to start crying. There was no going back. "I thought we were better than this."

And they really were better than this; they had the idealistic, cinematic kind of love that was everlasting. How could he forget that? Didn't he know who he was dealing with? Yes, it was unfashionable to love her, but he was the only person who had the capacity to love her. He was the only person who knew how to love her, even if he didn't want to accept all that she was, and now he was just going to throw it all away? Yes, she had issues, but how could he stop dealing with them all of a sudden? He was the most stable guy she knew, but now he wanted to drop all of it because reality was caving in a little?

No fucking way.

"I could have picked anyone," he murmured, "and I picked you." She couldn't tell whether he was ashamed or just pensive.

"You've never wanted anyone else," she reminded him. She paused for a beat. " _Is_ there someone else?"

"No."

Just what she thought.

"I can change," she told him, trying to take back everything she had said. She wanted to be his lifeless doll again. She wanted him to shrink her and wind her up because she now knew that being in total control of herself and forcing herself to grow only destroyed everything.

"I didn't know," she continued, "but I'll change. I swear I will. You caught me in a really bad time and—"

"You're always in a really bad time," he interrupted, his voice condescending.

"But I can change," she said again. "All these things will change, Edward. I promise."

She was full of empty promises. He'd known her for so long that he couldn't buy them anymore.

He just shook his head. "No, they won't," he said. Then he turned around to open the front door. A gust of cold wind hit her hard.

She grabbed his arm, trying to get him to stay. He pried her hand away, and it fell down to her side.

"I know it's hard for you to love me," she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I know it's really, really hard since I'm so all over the place all the time, but you're the only one who sees the real me. Edward, if you don't love me, who will?"

He turned to her, and she would never forget his beautiful green eyes. They were burned into her memory instantly.

"Hopefully, you."

* * *

As the queen of empty promises, Bella went back to La Push three days later. Nobody asked why.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks for reading, and take care._

 _HS_


	19. XIX

_**A/N:** I own no part of Twilight._

 _If you haven't read the latest chapter, go do it. Like, now._

 _New arc: the dawn of Bella x Jacob._

 _Enjoy._

 **XIX.**

 _bite chunks out of me_  
 _you're a shark and i'm swimming_  
 _my heart still thumps as i bleed_  
 _and all your friends come sniffing_

* * *

"So you built this car all by yourself?" Bella asked, toying with a wrench in her hands.

"Every last bit of it," Jacob said. His head was lost in the hood of the Rabbit until he turned to look at her and nod his head. "Pass me that wrench, will you?"

She tossed it at him, and he caught it with ease.

Since their disaster of a date, Jacob and Bella had formed a camaraderie of sorts. He had been by her side at Leah's birthday party, and since then, he hadn't abandoned her. He was a good kid—the kind of kid who would think girls like her were weird—so she was glad she hadn't completely scared him off back in August. She never thought he would stay.

It was March now, and she liked to think they were good friends. She didn't come over often, since she decided to go back to working part-time at the Newtons' store in January, but whenever she did visit Jacob and vice-versa, it wasn't awkward. Instead, it was natural. Since last month, when they'd officially reconnected, he never held anything against her. He never brought up the date. He lived in the now, which she appreciated.

"Well, kinda," Jacob corrected himself. "I bought some of the parts."

"That still counts," Bella assured him.

"Yeah."

They were in his garage, which wasn't attached to his house. It was its own separate building, and it looked like a barn. It was small and red and perfect. They often spent their days here because it felt like home to her. His car was done, but he liked to perfect things since he was so meticulous and good with his hands. They never had much to do, but they liked to do nothing together.

He put the wrench back in the toolbox and sat down on a box in front of her. "I guess we finally ran out of things to do," he said.

She bit her bottom lip. _There's no fucking way I'm going back home to my thoughts._ "I guess we're just gonna have to find something else to do."

They ended up in her truck, driving back to Forks. Her one day off this week was going to be put to good use. They were going to buy a pizza and watch TV at her house. They were the most creative, exciting duo to ever exist.

"What's your story?" Bella asked Jacob, taking her time and driving at the speed limit so the car ride would take forever.

"My _story_?" he asked.

"Your life story."

"From the beginning to now?"

"Yeah," she told him. "Go ahead."

"It's not that interesting," he said. "There's not much to it."

"I highly doubt that. C'mon, Jake. Tell me about it."

"Well, uh..." He was confused. Why did she care so much? Why did it even _matter_? Whatever.

She waited. He sighed. "I was born on the rez just a little over nineteen years ago. I have a couple sisters—twins. One graduated from U-Dub last spring and lives in Seattle. The other is married to a surfer and lives in Hawaii."

"I think I remember them," Bella said.

"Really?"

"Rachel and… sorry, I forgot the other one's name."

"Rebecca."

"Right."

"Yeah, Rebecca lives in Hawaii," he said, his voice blunt. His tone remained blunt as he continued to speak. He just wasn't used to anybody actually asking about him or his life. "Rachel's in Seattle. I stayed here. They ran off as fast as they could when my mom died. She died when I was nine."

Bella nodded, and immediately felt bad for treating Renee, Charlie, and Phil like shit so consistently. Jacob's mother was dead and his father was in a fucking wheelchair, yet he was still positive and not a pain in the ass. Bella was such a jerk-ass to all three of the parental figures in her life.

"I went to the rez school until I got to high school," he told her. "I graduated from Forks High School. Sorry if I'm boring you."

"No, it's fine," she said, focusing on the road.

"Just tell me when to stop."

"Don't even worry about it. Keep going. So you're nineteen. You're a high school graduate. What are you gonna do now?"

"You sound like a teacher," he commented.

"God, sorry."

"I'm going to PenCol in the fall, though."

"PenCol?"

"Peninsula College. The community college in Port Angeles. You going?"

Ever since she hadn't gotten into Dartmouth, college had never been on her mind. She couldn't be at the Newtons' store forever, though. She was better than _that._ She should probably further her education… or something.

"I wasn't planning on it," she said, "but I should probably apply."

"The rest of us are going," he said, "for the most part."

"Us?" she repeated. "Who's that?"

"The people back at Leah's party."

"Oh. They're nice."

"Leah's complicated," Jacob said. It was code for _bitch._

Bella laughed. "I'm glad you said it so I didn't have to."

"So that's pretty much it when it comes to me," he said.

She just shook her head and smiled. "That can't be it. There's gotta be more than that."

"I'm exactly as boring as you think I am," he assured her. "I'm a reservation boy. Nothing too special."

 _Someone's been shrinking him_ , she thought. _Somebody's been making him feel inadequate._

"Jacob, you don't have to listen to any other word I say," she began, "but just know this: you're not boring. Never shrink yourself down. It's not worth it."

He thought on that for a minute. Then he said, "So tell me about you."

She shook her head and smiled at him. _Silly, silly boy._ "Give me some time."

* * *

Bella picked up a flat rock on First Beach and chucked it forward. It landed in the water with a small _plop._ Then she picked up a similar rock and threw it in exactly the same way, somehow expecting it to do something different. It didn't.

She turned around and returned to her new friends, if that's where they really were. She was really just an outsider. They were so established that she couldn't wrap her head around it. She had only seen groups of friends this tight in movies, but then again, she wasn't exactly friendship-oriented. The closest things she had ever known had been her coworkers, the small-town kids her age, and they hardly even talked outside of work unless Bella was getting someone to cover for her. And she used to have friends in Phoenix—then she realized they weren't really friends.

Bella and her new "friends" were all sitting down on driftwood logs, talking and eating the food they brought with them out of plastic containers. Leah and Paul (the latter in which Bella hadn't met yet and didn't really want to since he had a punk-ass look to him) were in the middle of some deep conversation, but she was making eye contact and he wasn't. He just stared down at the sandwich he was eating. Bella knew immediately that Leah liked Paul more than he liked her. But why were they so intimate, yet so distant? Bella would never find out. Kim, who Bella couldn't decide if she liked or not, sat on the outside of Leah and Paul, waiting for their conversation to dissipate. Kim and Leah were real friends. And then Emily, who Bella decided she kind of liked due to her tranquil nature, was sitting with Seth, Embry, and Jacob. Bella took a spot next to Jacob and leaned in thoughtfully.

 _This is it,_ she thought. _Having real friends._

She was really pushing it now.

Not able to follow the conversation and still in awe of where she was and who she was with (and who she wasn't with), she didn't notice when Embry, Jacob's best friend, turned the topic of the conversation to her.

"Bella?" he asked again.

She snapped out of her cloudy mind. "Sorry. Yeah?"

"Where are you from again?"

"Arizona," she said. "Phoenix."

"Damn. Why'd you move up here, then?"

That was the typical reaction she got; she was so _big city_ and so _worldly_ to these kids. But she knew they didn't want to know the real reason why she was here. In hindsight, it was kind of stupid. Selfishly enough, she kind of wanted to be the elusive, dreamy new girl. The fact that there was nobody like her in this group made her feel special. And she got the impression by their hobbies that they were just dumb, small-town kids. They'd accept her because her presence would make their lives so much more interesting.

"I don't know," she lied to Embry. "I got tired."

"You didn't leave a lot behind?"

She shook her head. "No, not really. I don't even have any friends."

Embry gave her an honest look. "Bella, we _are_ your friends."

* * *

It was like time didn't exist.

They didn't have anywhere to be, ever. Yeah, some of them had work, but in the meantime, it was all play. It didn't matter where they were. It was too cold to go to the beach every single day, but they all coexisted at any location. An interesting time was guaranteed when they all linked up. Bella had never felt more included. These _were_ her friends.

Just when Bella was starting to get comfortable and feel herself a little, though, Leah kept her humble. Always.

They—minus Quil, Paul, Sam, and Emily—were all at Jacob's house today since his dad wasn't, just watching a movie. Embry had brought over his collection, crafted by the gods. They were watching something obscure, at least to Bella. It was a Tarantino film she wasn't familiar with. She had only seen _Pulp Fiction_ since it was a social norm, especially with these kids. But she had never really been into movies, and as far as she knew, there wasn't a book club going on here. She may just have to start one; she just hoped Leah wasn't as into books as she was.

Bella sat on the end of the couch, next to Jacob. When the credits started rolling, she spoke up.

"We should have a Tarantino marathon," she said.

"Yeah, okay, Sixth Ranger," Leah said under her breath.

Bella held her tongue. She wanted to call Leah out for being continuously petty towards her for no given reason, but she didn't want to risk being ostracized after just finding her place. For the most part, everyone had accepted her, but she could still go back to being lonely. The possibility was very real.

So she didn't say anything.

 _Just let her talk_ , she thought. _Talk is all she is._

* * *

Bella looked up "Sixth Ranger" when she got home that night. It bothered her. Leah had basically said that Bella messed up the group. They had been so established before Bella came along, but she ruined all that just by being there. The term could also mean that Bella was what they needed, and that her presence helped them, but she knew damn well that Leah didn't mean that.

Leah was so fucking petty. Bella didn't understand why.

She tried not to worry about it, though. She'd just stay out of her way. She didn't know why Leah didn't like her—probably because she was new and everyone else liked her, when she thought about it—but she didn't want to find out the truth from Leah herself. Yeah, she was all talk and nothing else, but Bella didn't want to hear any more of it. She had never been good at defending herself, anyway.

She would just have to lay low, even as she knew she was being taken apart, piece by piece.

 _Just let her talk._

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _I'll update Friday. At this rate, this story will be done in February of next year._

 _Take care,_

 _HS_


	20. XX

_**A/N:** I own no part of Twilight. Imagine how easy it'd be to pay for college if I did. I present chapter 20 of Static. We're putting a little bit of a dent in the story now.  
_

 _This chapter is solely focused on Jacob and Bella, and, of course, Bella's obsessive inner monologue. She's interesting to write. She thinks about so much all at once, all the time. Her mind is a hurricane. I hope I'm conveying it that way._

 _And to the anon who thinks I'm a stoner, I'm not. Try again._

 _Enjoy._

 **XX.**

 _triangles are my favorite shape  
_ _three points where two lines meet  
_ _toe to toe, back to back, let's go, my love, it's very late  
_ _'til morning comes, let's tessellate_

* * *

Jacob tripped over his words. "Bella—Isabella—what do you prefer to be called?"

As they walked down First Beach, the sun was just peeking out from behind the clouds. It was the first taste of summer. It was going to be hot for Forks, but it wasn't going to be _hot_.

Bella tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear and kept her eyes down on her well-worn Chuck Taylors. Those shoes had seen a lot, she decided. "Whatever you want to call me," she said. "I don't mind."

"Isn't that counter-intuitive?" he asked, tripping over his feet as he stared at her. "Shouldn't you be the one to decide?"

"It doesn't matter that much," she told him, finally looking up. "What would you like to call me?" She smiled shyly, hiding her mouth under the sleeve of her navy blue hoodie. He noticed how nice of a color it was on her against her beautiful, soft, pale skin.

"Blue," he said absentmindedly.

"Blue?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"And why's that?" she asked quietly.

"Why do names matter at all?" he challenged. "You just asked me for a new one."

"I wanna know the significance. There's significance in every name."

"Not mi—"

"Even yours. So, tell me. Why would you like to call me Blue?"

She waited for him to say something poetic. Then she realized they didn't live in fiction, and he wasn't anything like Edward.

"That jacket looks nice on you," Jacob told her.

"I thought you were gonna say something about my perpetually melancholic disposition."

He sighed, and she was almost positive that he was tired of her already. The second she started to actually talk about her personal life would be the second he'd realize she was fucking nuts and he'd run away. Or better yet, she would have to run away. That made a lot more sense.

But he just sighed and wrapped his arm around her. He was warm—much warmer than her—and she didn't mind. She kind of liked it. Being around Jacob was simple, easy; it didn't feel like a job.

"Blue," he said, "I think that's damn beautiful."

* * *

Boys were funny. Bella never got the joke.

Edward had ignored Bella's very serious and very prominent depression, acting like it never existed. Jacob now glorified it. Edward had found it too ugly to think about, and Jacob now found it as a quality that made Bella even more beautiful. He saw it as a talent. He expected her to want to call him in the late hours of the night to go on impromptu road trips and paint pictures and have deep talks about life and how they were wasting it and shit. He didn't know anything except for the movies he'd seen and the books he'd read.

Jacob—as kind and warm and whole as he was—was just as dumb as the rest of them.

That didn't mean she didn't like him, though; that just meant they were short-term. Part-time, just like all the other love around here. She could handle that. Just because she was used to cinematic, otherworldly love of incredible magnitudes didn't mean that simpler, easier love wasn't important, too.

Jacob and Bella started dating that spring and summer, or that was how he liked to describe it. She found _dating_ as such a weird term. She didn't really want to have sex with him yet or even kiss him most of the time, but she knew she didn't want to hang out with anyone else. That was probably what made them a couple. They did the same things as they normally did with everybody else—watch movies at home, go to the beach, slowly waste their lives—but they did it together, and holding hands.

And that was why she kept Jacob around: being around him was so simple and normal. She had never been in a relationship so low-maintenance and relaxing—at least, in a very long time. She and Edward had started out this way, but he had grown up to be just like his father: hungry for money and power and glory. He and Bella had to be very mature. Very adult with scheduled business dates and planned sex (that wasn't necessarily bad). The only time they had recently let their guards down was when they did weed. When they had started dating, they didn't need to do weed a lot, or do anything. They had just liked to be together. They had been kids for a little while, but being with Edward had aged Bella so much in so little time. They had practically been married. They just might be now if she hadn't ruined everything between them.

But she knew she wasn't going to marry Jacob. With him, they were just kids. And at this rate, she wasn't going to marry anybody. She would just date nice boys and hold hands with them and not worry about it. She was going to be a kid again.

Jacob, however, thought they were something else. He thought they were something big, something powerful and cinematic and otherworldly. She was his first real girlfriend. But overall, it was an easy summer so far. Tranquil. She didn't have any complaints besides the obvious ones.

They were in his garage like they always were when she was convinced he thought they were something special.

"You know," he began. "We're Black and Blue."

"Like a perfect bruise," she agreed.

"Yeah. That's kinda fucked up."

"It really is, isn't it?"

* * *

Sometimes Bella and Jacob got out of La Push and Forks. She had never really _seen_ Port Angeles before, so when she told him, he sprung up to the chance of taking her to see something new. So far, she had been taking the lead, giving him a new clue of the mystery of Bella Swan every day. It was fun being elusive and brand-new—it was fun keeping him guessing. Edward had taken away too much of her too soon; that was why she was so broken now.

But Jacob took the lead this time. He took Bella to the movie theater in Port Angeles. It was a small theater—the type to play only four movies a day so one would really have to plan ahead—but she didn't mind. She didn't mind much in regards to Jacob just because he was a genuinely good guy.

Like the good guy he was, during the movie—a dumb horror film—he stretched his arm out around her shoulder and kept it there. She brought her hand up to hold his, and he smiled to himself. This was his first real relationship, and he wasn't fucking it up. They weren't awkward, either. They were just Black and Blue.

The fact that it wasn't verbally confirmed yet killed him, though.

As they exited the theater, she walked with her hands in the pockets of her hoodie, laughing as they discussed how horrible the movie was.

"You sure know how to pick 'em," he said, holding the door open for her as they left the theater and started walking towards the lobby.

"The trailers on TV looked good!" she replied. "I couldn't help it."

"After all the fantastic movies you've seen at my house," he said with a playful shake of his head. "I can't believe your taste is still so damaged."

"You can pick next time, then," she said. "I'll even buy the tickets."

"Nah," he replied. "Nothing that's been out is good enough to see in theaters."

"Oh?"

"You wouldn't _believe_ the cinematic excellence I've witnessed in my nineteen years of life."

She accidentally bumped into him, and then she looked up. Their faces were close. She moved over a little and continued walking.

"Tell me something," she said.

"Yeah?"

"Are you actually _that_ into movies, or do you just act like it because of your friends?"

He thought on it for a second. "Embry does have an extensive collection," he admitted, "but movies are movies. I know how to appreciate the good ones, though."

She bit her lip thoughtfully and nodded as she looked down at her shoes. "I see."

"See what?"

"See that you're a fake."

"Oh, _I'm_ fake?" he asked play-defensively.

She looked up again and smiled. "Yeah. Definitely. You pretend to like things for the sake of your friends. Your friends don't give a fuck about your interests and you let them act that way because they're your friends. Apparently."

"Everybody pretends a little bit," he told her. "That's how friendships work."

"Did you pick them, though?" she asked. "Are those people—the people you see every single day and pretend to be into all those movies for—your friends because you actually like them, or because you grew up with them?"

"Why's that even important?"

"I rest my case."

"That's easy for you to say," he told her. "You're the one who doesn't have any friends. You wouldn't know what it's like."

She shrugged. "That doesn't bother me. Everyone's a little fake as long as they have friends around, anyway."

"And you wanna be as real as possible," he said.

They stopped by a bench in the lobby and sat down. It was an empty, aimless early-June day. For Bella, the day of the week didn't matter. It was either work or no work. Jacob or no Jacob.

"My only wish is that I die real," she agreed. "There's no other way."

"I've got you all figured out, then."

"Keep telling yourself that," she teased.

They were silent for a moment. She stared at the shiny black tiles on the ground. She placed her cold hand on his warm one, and she realized she felt at home again. She didn't feel as crazy or out of control.

"Can you tell me something?" he asked her, his voice quiet.

"What?"

"Do you like me?"

She turned to look at him. He had pretty, brown, puppy-dog eyes. His innocence was all in the eyes.

"I can't see myself hanging out with anybody else," she told him.

"Then what are we?"

She gave him a small smile; he returned it. "Whatever you'd like us to be," she said. "But I'm not going to call myself your girlfriend."

His smile dropped. "What?"

"It's such a strange term to me. Boyfriend-girlfriend."

"But we've gotta be _something_."

"Your friends just think that," she said. She was right. Jake's crew was just a bunch of sharks in disguise. They would come swimming at the tiniest hint of blood. She didn't know why that was, but it bothered her.

"But this is about you," she went on. "What would you like me to be?"

He gave her hand a slight squeeze. "Mine."

"So I am."

"Are you being real right now?"

"As always."

And then he leaned in and kissed her for the first time. His lips were soft against hers, but he didn't know what to do with them. The kiss was awkward, too, but it didn't feel wrong.

When they finally pulled away, they smiled at each other.

They were real, and she was real—real crazy.

She might just end up saving him.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I'll update Wednesday. The next chapter is a bit of a detour, and NSFW. I mean..._

 _Take care,_

 _HS_


	21. XXI

_**A/N:**_ _I own no part of Twilight. This chapter is a little bit of a detour, and highly NSFW (okay, it has phone sex). It says a lot about Bella's character more than anything. And I'm posting chapter 22 right after this one. I couldn't wait._

 _Enjoy._

 **XXI.**

 _tell me what do i do?_  
 _baby, it's clear_

* * *

Jacob eventually got a part-time job at a store in La Push, so he and Bella had more space, but not enough to cause any damage.

It was just enough for Edward to start talking to her again.

She fucking hated the influence he had on her, but she couldn't fight it.

Edward was frequenting between Seattle and Portland this summer, and he swore he missed her and that he'd see her again. He didn't know she was kind of in a relationship with Jacob, and she didn't tell him. She didn't want him to get angry or upset, and even as she was speaking with Edward, she wasn't necessarily cheating on Jacob. Somewhere in her fucked-up logic, there was legitimate reasoning and it made all the sense in the world.

Bella primarily kept Edward around her—or vice-versa, if she was going to be honest with herself—because she was horny. She was always fucking horny and she needed to fix it, but she didn't want to have sex with Jacob too soon. She didn't know what she was waiting for, but for now it wouldn't feel right.

As much as she liked to say she was real and would only want to be real, she was truly fake. She had said she didn't care to have friends, and maybe that was true, but camaraderie was what she needed, preferably of the sexual kind. It was easier for her to admit that she was a sexual person, but she still felt like she was she betraying some part of herself. Sometimes she still felt like that fifteen-year-old, horribly ashamed of her body. She needed to grow up and get over it.

It was a muggy June afternoon, and she had a date with Edward.

Rubbing lotion that smelled of lavender onto her skin, Bella felt her heart running off a cliff. This would be it, her undoing. Not Edward or anything he could ever say to her, but the way he made her heart pound just in anticipation. Jacob was a good guy with good intentions, but she couldn't do this with him. At least, not yet. He was such a child and she didn't want to wait for him to grow up.

She'd been in the bathroom for an eternity, and she was tired of looking at herself. She was tired of looking into her own eyes, and at her own body, clad in a lacy black bra and equally lacy black panties, as well as the way she bit her lip when she had nervous thoughts. She was tired of all of it. But Edward would see those same things and find something to love about them. He was just as bad as she was—he just couldn't stay away.

When she was finished getting ready, she retreated to her bedroom and locked the door. Laying on her side on the bed, she then messaged him with trembling fingers even though they'd done this a thousand times.

"Call me," she wrote.

She received the call in a matter of moments.

Upon seeing the other person's face, they smiled like they weren't the most fake people in the world. He was currently away in Oregon, visiting friends. He'd been spending so much time between Seattle and Portland because he was too much of a coward to formally date her again. She'd actually been the one to plan this date because she wasn't too proud to beg, and she didn't function on his time anymore.

"Hey," she said. "How's it going?"

He ignored her polite question. "You look beautiful," he remarked.

"You've only seen my face so far."

"I just had to get it out before I start babbling like an idiot."

He looked like he was in a hotel room; she could tell by the wallpaper.

"You're alone, right?" Bella asked.

"Of course," Edward replied. "And you?"

"Yeah, for a couple hours." Her father was at Billy's house. From the looks of it, he'd be there forever.

Edward was silent for a moment. "I wish I could kiss you right now."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"I could kiss you for hours," she admitted.

"Is that so?"

"Yeah."

"If I could kiss you right now," he said, "you know where I'd put my hands?"

"Do you need to see to figure it out?"

"Please."

She panned the camera down a bit, and he received a peek of her lingerie.

He sighed. "Goddamn."

"Would you touch me there?"

"Yes, but not at first. I wouldn't put my hands anywhere at first."

"What would you do?"

It was so quiet that they could both hear a pin drop, even with their distance. Wanting to see him again, she put the front camera back to her face. She tried to keep her breathing okay, tried to remain cool. She was such a fraud—she was Cool Girl to Jacob and everyone else around here because she was so new and unknown, but with Edward, she was like a child.

"I'd put my lips," he began, "on your throat, feel your pulse, and without taking my eyes away from yours, I'd move my lips to your lips for just a moment."

She began to touch herself over her panties, moving her fingers gently. "Mm-hm."

"And before you even know it, you'd be pushing my head down, with your fingers all in my hair."

"And where would your fingers be?" she asked.

"Wherever you want them to be."

"I'm trying to figure that out right now." Staring at him, she stuck two fingers of her right hand into her mouth, and they were out of the frame, under the lace waistband of her panties. In that instant, she thought it was all over; she thought she had set herself on fire.

His breathing hitched. "Oh fuck, Bella, you're gonna do this to me?" he asked.

"Mm-hm."

"God, I miss you." Not enough.

"I miss you, too." Still not enough.

His eyes closed as his right hand became significantly busier. "What do you do when I'm gone?" he wondered.

Still working her right hand around, she said, "I tell myself it's cool to do things my own damn way when I'm waiting for you. So when you're not here, I get my kicks just like you." If she was a more honest person, she would say that she got her kicks better alone than he could, most of the time.

"Just like me?" He was breathing hard, and his eyes were closed.

"That's the best way to get them." Then she moaned at her own touch, arching her back slightly. "Oh, shit," she grumbled.

He didn't speak; just grunted and stroked. Her whimpers matched like puzzle pieces without meaning to.

"Fuck, you're so sexy when you make noises like that," he told her.

"It's all for you," she said quietly, focused. She collected her thoughts, made sure to breathe, and took his lead the best she could. She was positive she had set herself on fire now. Something pooled in the pit of her stomach, and she wasn't too concerned with being silent or holding anything in.

Their noises carried the same tempo and dynamic. Not bothered with the camera angle that he looked at her from, she rolled her head back and set her phone down on the sheet. Once she found the right spot, she grabbed at her own body instead as her moans grew louder. Her other hand traced along her breasts, and then ran up and through her hair, tugging a little bit.

" _Fuck_ ," she exclaimed, not concerned with the entire neighborhood hearing her.

He climaxed first, and relaxed into his pillows in his bed in his hotel in Oregon. He waited.

She climaxed on her own time, reaching a state of bliss he could never take her to. When she had finished, she brought herself back down to Earth and slowly stuck her fingers into her mouth again. And tasted. She liked it.

The resolution was peaceful as they listened to each other breathe. With the subtle time lapse, they didn't really inhale and exhale at the exact same time, but they pretended. Just for kicks.

"I really miss you," she told him, even if it wasn't exactly true. Her voice was murky and lost somewhere in her throat. She wiped a couple of petty tears away, wishing he could do that for her like he used to, and put her face back on the front camera.

"You, too," he replied.

"And you'll be home soon?"

"I don't know."

She was silent. He didn't want her back. He just wanted to get off. She would call him the worst if she didn't recognize that she was doing the same thing.

"It's likely," he added.

"It's cool," she told both him and herself.

It was plenty cool. She'd just have to make do with things her own damn way to get her kicks.

It was cool.

* * *

Charlie came home later that night as Bella was cooking dinner, and she didn't know what to expect. He wasn't in a good mood, but he wasn't in a bad one, either. The way he said, "Hey, Bells" was ambiguous.

"How was it over at Billy's house?" she called as he got settled in the recliner in the living room. She stood in the kitchen, cutting up vegetables, trying to keep her mind off Edward and this afternoon's activities.

"It was pretty good," Charlie said, his voice unsure. "Jake was there."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah. He's a good kid, you know."

"We've been hanging out a lot. I like him." And it was true. It felt good to actually _not_ lie.

"He was gonna call and ask if you wanted to come over, too," Charlie added. "Guess he thought you were busy."

"I definitely would've gone over," she said. _Back to lying again already._ "I swore he had work, though."

"I mean, if you say you like him..." Charlie's voice trailed off.

Bella tried not to get too defensive too quickly. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked.

"I didn't think you'd give Jake a chance, is all," he said, finally relaxing now that he got to the point.

"We had that talk, what, a year ago?" Bella asked. "Things are different."

"I know, I know. And I know why, too. I just… I'm just surprised."

"You thought I'd never come around to liking him?"

"It's not that," he said lamely, "it's just—"

"It's just that," she finished. "Well, I do like Jacob. And his friends. I gave them a chance like you told me to a year ago and I'm glad that I did."

"Glad you broke up with that scumbag," he muttered under his breath, thinking she couldn't hear him. She blissfully ignored his comment and kept cooking dinner.

As much as she hated to reflect on what she had used to be with Edward, she knew exactly what he'd say at this given moment. In her head, he sat at the kitchen table, looking up at her with promising eyes, rolling a joint. He'd say that Charlie didn't understand them—or what they had been. He'd say, _Fuck 'em._

And she'd agree.

And she'd take a hit of that joint.

(God, she needed to get high right now.)

And she'd release all the bad vibes with the smoke. She'd always agree with him.

 _Fuck 'em._

She would have done that in an instant, back when he had been her everything, but she had changed. She was different and she was okay with it. She didn't need him like that anymore.

She smiled at her next thought.

 _Fuck him._

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Keep going. Chapter 22 is up next and it's a personal favorite of mine._

 _Take care,_

 _HS_


	22. XXII

**_A/N:_** _I own no part of Twilight._ _The previous chapter isn't necessarily a prerequisite to this one, but this one is such a favorite of mine. Honestly._

 _Enjoy._

 **XXII.**

 _that girl is a goddamn problem_

* * *

The June night was warm and buzzing as Leah and Kim drove out to Port Angeles, even though it was raining. The weather here was particularly peculiar, but they just played along like it wasn't.

Leah tried not to think about the last time she'd been to the coffee shop as she and Kim now pulled up to it in Kim's little black Ford. As far as Leah was concerned, the coffee shop was just the coffee shop, even though it was a diner. She tried to remain neutral upon arrival, but Kim knew something was up.

As they walked up to the front doors, Kim asked, "Are you okay?"

Leah shook her head. "After Prom," she explained, "Paul took me here."

"Do you wanna go somewhere else, then? I can just call Em and—"

"No, it's fine," Leah insisted. "It's whatever."

Kim opened the door for Leah. "Okay."

They went to a booth, where they hoped for but didn't expect Emily to be. She was late to everything, but it _was_ their fault that they were always doing things closer to Forks and La Push as opposed to Neah Bay.

Chatting about work over cups of coffee, Kim and Leah waited for Emily to show up, and when she finally did, she slid into the booth next to Kim, facing Leah.

"Hey," Leah greeted her. "How are you?"

"Pretty good." Leah couldn't tell if she was lying or not. Over the past couple months, Leah decided that she could determine Emily's state of being based on two things: what she was reading and if she was writing or not. That was all she was when it really came down to it. Tonight, she couldn't tell since Emily didn't have a book or a notebook or a tablet on her.

"Sorry I'm late," Emily added. "Have you guys ordered anything yet?"

"No," Kim said. "We were just waiting for you."

"Oh, thanks."

Leah added more creamer to her coffee even though she didn't have to. Coffee was such a luxury to her; finding out she had free refills tonight had made her mood a lot better.

The waitress, a pretty brunette whose name tag said Marina (which Leah thought was a fake name since nobody was _really_ named Marina), approached the booth and asked if they were ready to order. They were, and once they placed their orders and Marina went away, Emily gave Leah a look.

"Okay," she said. "Fess up, Lee."

"I'm sorry?"

"You're too quiet. What's going on?"

"I was just thinking the same thing," Kim said.

Leah actually hadn't been thinking of Paul. She just hadn't been thinking at all; her mind was someplace else, somewhere lost in the rain. She was fond of it since it wasn't working against her now. She wanted to become a part of the rain and wash away somewhere new.

"Nothing," Leah said. "I'm actually a little tired."

"Damn, really?" Emily asked. "It's so early—plus, it's Friday. I wanted to catch a movie tonight since we're in the area."

Kim took a sip of her coffee. "Is there anything out?" she asked.

"Can't remember the name of it, but apparently it's funny. Embry and everyone else are gonna go see it."

"Speaking of Embry, doesn't he work at this diner now?"

"Yeah. He got off early. That's why he wants us all to go tonight. He's finally free."

"I swear, Em," Leah began, "you are one of the only people around here who doesn't get sick of everyone."

Emily smiled wryly. "I just didn't grow up with everyone as closely as you did."

"It's not a bad thing," Leah said. "It just means you care. You're a good person."

Emily's smile grew. "Aww, thank you. I can't see who you get sick of everyone, though. I mean, isn't _Bella_ just the most _interesting, beautiful, mysterious_ , and did I mention _beautiful_ girl to show up on the rez?"

Leah made gagging sounds; Kim sighed. "Fuck outta here," Leah said to Emily. "I was having such a good time not having her in my thoughts."

"Have you guys actually talked to her?" Kim asked. "I can't decide if I like her or not."

"Yeah, she's weird," Emily agreed.

"She seems more like a concept than a person," Kim said. "Whenever I hear her talk, I just end up more and more confused. She's really playing up the mysterious new girl thing. I don't know how to feel about her because she seems so fake."

Emily nodded, taking a sip of her water. "I know. Her disposition is very… contrived."

"I don't know how Jacob deals with it."

"Bella and Jacob are still together?" Leah asked.

"Mm-hm."

" _God_ , I hate her," Leah sighed.

"That was a little unwarranted," Emily commented with a raise of her eyebrows.

"I don't know," Leah said. "Her entire presence just bothers me. You ever know someone like that?"

"Not anybody I can name," Emily replied.

"Well, Bella just irks me. I don't get what anyone is seeing in her."

"She's a cute white girl," Kim pointed out.

"She's very cute," Emily added, "in an indie sort of way. Guys are into that, I guess."

"I mean, whatever, I guess she's cute," Leah said, "but I'm still trying to wrap my head around why she thinks she can just come up here out of nowhere, thinking she can fuck with us, and ride Indian dick but not ride _for_ Indians."

"We don't know if she's fucking Jacob or not," Emily said.

"It's Jacob. He tries to hump everything that shows even a little interest in him."

"Point taken."

"Bella's just so fake," Leah went on, "and what she's doing is actually kind of racist. Like, she thinks she's better than the rest of us because her lily-white ass lives in Forks. She thinks her cryptic ass is saving us with her presence. She's no better than the rest of us, though."

"That's what people used to say about me," Kim reflected.

"Yeah, but you grew out of it like most people do," Leah said, "and Bella won't. She thinks she lives in a book or something. She thinks she's gonna save Jacob's life because she's white and new and some holy type of shit, and Jacob, being the idiot that he is, is totally gonna fall for it. He's kind of dumb, but he doesn't deserve that."

"True," Emily said, "but have you not read any young adult novel published within the last five years? It's typical. Your mom said she was having issues, right?"

"Right."

"Bella is _the_ young adult novel prototype. Strange white girl who's kind of cute and has issues seeks boy—extra points if the boy's not white—and changes his life for the better and the worse. She helps him see the meaning of life by giving fake-deep speeches while simultaneously looking down upon other members of their generation for being too 'normal' or whatever."

Leah blinked twice, completely enthralled. "Go on."

"And I know we don't really know Bella," Emily admitted, "but that's just what I'm getting from her."

"Damn," Kim murmured. "You've got her all figured out, Em."

"What kind of books are you reading?" Leah wondered.

Emily smiled. "Nothing special. Another thing they've all got in common is that they're a waste of time."

Marina the waitress brought the girls their orders. After she left, Emily took a bite of one of her French fries. "So," she began, "are we doing the movies after this or what?"

"I wanna go," Kim said. "You should come, Lee. If it sucks we can just go home. You can spend the night."

"Oh, I'm getting my eight bucks worth of cinematic excellence," Leah assured her. "But I swear to God, if Bella's there..."

"Why don't you fight her?" Emily suggested. "Just beat her ass, right there in the movie theater parking lot. She won't know why you're fighting her, especially since you guys don't really talk, but you should get that negative energy out. She'll stop being annoying and low-key racist if you beat her ass."

"You're a horrible influence," Leah said. "Don't be giving me ideas now."

Emily laughed. "I'm just saying, Lee..."

"We'll see," Leah said with a playful smile. "We'll see."

* * *

It had stopped raining once everybody met up in the movie theater parking lot. All ten of them showed up. If Jared would ever come home from college for the summer, there would be eleven. But other than that, everyone was there. Even Paul. Even Sam. Hell, even Quil. In fact, Bella talked with Quil for a long time. Leah thought she saw them go out to his truck for a minute, but she couldn't be sure. She wouldn't be surprised if Bella was buying weed from him, though. (She really was buying weed.)

It was a big group linking up tonight. Something was bound to happen—Leah just knew it. She was surprised everyone turned out to see some movie, but not to celebrate her birthday last November, at the first party. She quickly brushed the feeling off.

The group traveled in a sort of cloud. Seeing the movie had been Embry's idea, so he lead the way with Seth following him. Emily and Sam, who were still together whenever Sam was around, trailed next to Embry. Leah and Kim walked with Paul and Quil, things still awkward even though Kim desperately tried to rebuild a demolished bridge between Leah and Paul. Jacob and Bella trailed behind everyone else, saying they'd catch up. Holding hands, they were completely caught up in each other. Despite Emily's accurate explanation, Leah still didn't know _why._

The movie had just premiered and the theater was relatively busy, so busy that the group had to occupy two separate rows that both extended from the middle to the aisle. With Leah's garbage luck, she ended up in the very middle, sitting between a person she didn't know and Bella, of all people. She sat right behind Kim, who sat next to Quil. She wanted to ask if she and Quil could trade places, but it'd be a big, annoying deal to get up and move around so much.

Leah didn't pay Bella any mind, and vice-versa, but for a good portion of the previews, Bella played on her phone in the pocket of her hoodie. Leah couldn't ignore the light coming emitting from her peripheral vision, so she glanced over.

Bella was talking dirty to a guy in her contacts named Edward.

 _Real_ dirty.

Leah had never seen so many profanities used in a single text message. It was actually kind of mind-numbing. Some words didn't even look like words anymore since she'd seen them so much in that moment.

The entire situation was actually kind of crazy, too. Bella was typing something out of a porn script into her phone without any regards for Jacob or Leah or anybody. Leah didn't want to get into a fight with Bella. Not now, not ever. Girls like Bella, girls who who had nothing to hide, clearly didn't care about anything, so they were wild-ass fighters. It was a natural law. Bella could probably throw down in a grocery store with a total stranger and not feel bad about it. Leah had a little too much pride to deal with that, so she wasn't going to fuck with her.

The light was still bothering her, though, so she turned to Bella and tapped her arm. Bella stuffed her phone deep into her pocket. "Your phone screen's really bright," Leah whispered.

"Oh, sorry." Bella turned the brightness down and continued typing until the rest of the theater lights dimmed down when the movie started. Then she leaned over and rested her head on Jacob's shoulder like she wasn't just talking to her ex. He wrapped his arm around her, completely oblivious. Leah wanted to throw up.

 _The girl's fucking ruthless,_ she decided.

* * *

When the movie was over, Leah walked with Emily back to the parking lot. They made sure to stay far behind everyone else, especially Jacob and Bella, as they talked quietly. When Leah told Emily what she had read on Bella's phone, Emily exploded with laughter, ruining her cover.

"Shh!" Leah hissed.

"I'm sorry," Emily said, still laughing, "but that is _incredible._ "

"I know," Leah said. "Should I say something to Jake?"

"You should say something to _her_ ," Emily suggested. "Ask her what kind of pineapple she's eating, because her pussy must be fucking _divine_ for her to just do all that on her phone in plain sight."

"Em, I'm being serious," Leah said. "What should I do?"

Emily regained her composure, finally. "Okay," she said. "You shouldn't fight her. Girls who don't give a fuck who's watching don't care about anything in a fight, so she'd probably fight as dirty as she talks, and I'm assuming you wouldn't like to be scalped in public."

They were practically one and the same. "Right," Leah said.

"And do you really care about Jacob that much? Enough to tell him he's basically being cheated on?"

"I don't think it's really about him," Leah admitted. "I mean, what do I owe _Jake_? He's just kind of dumb. But I think this is about the greater good. You know. Letting everyone know about Bella."

"Gotta warn all of us," Emily said.

"Yeah. So what should I do?"

"I say you should just talk to her. Like we've already established, there's a good chance she's a savage-ass fighter, so I wouldn't, like, confront her, but I'd do the bitch-shit thing and just be like, 'I know you're cheating on Jacob, so you better stop or else' and then run the hell outta there."

"That _is_ some bitch-shit," Leah said.

"Do you wanna be scalped? Because you can go confront her right now and get scalped in front of everybody if you insist. I won't get in the way."

"Ugh," Leah groaned.

"You've got fifteen seconds," Emily said, nodding her head towards Jacob and Bella, who were heading to his car.

"God," Leah muttered. She sped up and walked towards Jacob and Bella. She gave a fake smile and asked if she could speak to Bella for a second. She complied.

Leah pulled her aside, far from anyone's earshot, and dropped the smile. "I saw you that you were texting another guy during the movie," she said.

"What?" Bella was genuinely confused.

"You know what I said. It was some pretty dirty shit and I don't think Jacob would appreciate his girlfriend doing that with some other guy."

"How do you even—"

"Break things off with Jacob," Leah said sharply, "or you're gonna be sorry." Then she turned and walked away.

 _Jacob better thank me for the rest of his damn life,_ she thought bitterly.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thoughts? I'll update Monday. Coming up: Bella and Jacob af._

 _Take care,_

 _HS_


	23. XXIII

_**A/N:** First things, first, I own no part of Twilight, which is probably a good thing. _

_I now present chapter 23 of Static. I remember getting to chapter 23 of Destructive Desire in a year. I was so proud. Kinda Outta Luck, Gods and Monsters, and Cleansing never even had 23 chapters. Blur never came close. Remedium was about 23 chapters long. Static's been up for only a little over 2 months now and it's hit 23 chapters. That's funny to think about. I'm just ripping through this story. It's literally so. fucking. long. But I'm ready. I've been ready. The important question is: are you?_

 _So here's chapter 23. It's heavy on Jacob x Bella shenanigans, and very NSFW. It contains sex. Explicitly. It also features Quil, more insight to Bella's backstory, and foreshadowing._

 _Enjoy._

 **XXIII.**

 _you wanna be high for this_

* * *

Bella and Jacob sat in his garage the next afternoon. It was a lazy Saturday, and the garage thing had become a routine. They'd sit there across from each other and drink sodas and talk about things that didn't really matter. He'd stare at her and they'd kiss from time to time. It was sweet and chaste—but it was boring as hell and they both knew they wanted a little more from each other now.

She crushed her soda can in her hands once it was empty. Then she looked up at Jacob. "Do you wanna go camping?"

He seemed to be surprised. "Uh, sure," he said lamely. "Wanna go next weekend? There's a nice ground over by the beach and—"

"I wanna go tonight," she said affirmatively. "What time is it, six o'clock? We should go—we've got time."

"But I—"

"Do you not have the stuff for it?"

"I do have the stuff for him."

She smiled and stood up, making her way over to him. She straddled him, and he wished those amazing thighs, hardly hidden by her little denim shorts, could be over his shoulders instead. She placed her hands on his firm biceps. Then she tossed her hair over to the side and brought her mouth to his neck, planting gentle kisses on him.

"Then what are we waiting for?" she asked.

* * *

After digging around his house for camping materials, they ended up at the campground at First Beach in a matter of minutes. It was relatively busy, so they got a conventional space like everyone else did. It was mostly families here, and Bella hated it, but she played nice.

Night had fallen and everyone else at the campground had gone to sleep. Jacob and Bella were sitting on a bench outside their tent, looking up at the stars. The night wasn't cloudy; she was surprised. And it was silent, but not silent enough for it to be awkward.

"Jake," she whispered.

"Yeah, Bells?" he whispered back.

"Let's go down to the beach."

"Are we even allowed to camp there?"

"Do I look like I care?"

"Bells, I don't think we're allowed to camp over there. That's why we're on a campground."

"You are such a coward sometimes," she said. "What are you so afraid of?"

He didn't have an answer.

She got up and went into the tent. Before he could ask what she was doing, she quickly came out with a sleeping bag.

"I'm gonna go down to the beach," she said. "And you can stay behind and continue being a coward—or something. I don't care."

Now he knew he fucked up. "C'mon, Bells," he said, his voice still low. "Don't be like that."

She shrugged. "You're so afraid of everything, Jake. It's killing me, but it's especially killing you."

"Then let's go," he said. "I'll go with you."

"You don't have to if you don't want to."

"But I want to," he assured her. "And I really want you." _Did I just say that?_ he thought. _Shit._

She bit her lip, and then grabbed his hand. With her fingers laced to his, a sleeping bag over her shoulder, and her voice just above a whisper, she led him to his fate, commanding, "Go, go, go, go, _go._ "

And so they went.

* * *

She unzipped the sleeping bag and unfolded it, laying it flat onto the sand. Giggling, she laid on her back and Jacob laid on his side, right next to her.

"I don't think it matters if we're allowed to be here or not," she said.

And then it was silent. Totally silent. She looked up at the stars, and he tried to look up at them, too, but he grew bored. He looked over at her instead. When she caught his gaze, she scooted closer to him and kissed him hard and raw. She tasted sweet, like strawberries.

He still didn't know what to do with his hands, but he certainly tried. He touched her breasts over the cloth of her black tank top, over her bra, and she lifted her shirt so he could feel her better. He rolled over to be on top, and she ran her hands along his sculpted back, under his shirt, squeezing at the muscles. She eagerly helped him tug his shirt off, and suddenly, he stopped. He moved his hands away from her breasts and leaned back a little.

"Shit," he muttered.

"What's wrong?"

"Are we really gonna do this right now?"

"Yeah," she said impatiently, trying to tug his shorts down.

He put his hands over hers, stopping her. "It's just that I—"

"You have protection, right?" she asked, her eyes still down at his shorts.

"Yeah, of course."

"Then what's wrong?"

He sighed. "I'm big."

She looked up and smiled. "You make that sound like a curse or something."

"Are you sure you're gonna be able to handle it?"

"I'm pretty sure."

"Well, yeah. But I'm, uh..." He hesitated. He was really good at that.

"What, Jake?" she demanded, clearly annoyed.

"I'm eight-and-a-half inches."

"Why would you lie to my face like that?"

"Wait, _what_?" he demanded. "You think I'm _lying_?"

"I'm gonna think that if you don't let me find out for myself, Jacob." Then she took her top off and threw it aside. Soon enough, the rest of her clothes—and his—were somewhere in the sand, and she was staring down at him.

"I'm sorry for accusing you of lying," she said, sincerely apologetic. Even though she had only been with one other guy before Jacob, she knew he was _huge._

Jacob smirked. "Really, now?"

"Really." Now she was the shy one. "So, um," she said, "we're gonna have to be methodical about this. Meticulous."

"Right," he said. "Organized."

"Efficient."

"Of course."

Before she did anything else, she leaned over him and reached into the pocket of her discarded denim shorts. She pulled out a dime bag, rolling paper, and a lighter. She quickly but carefully started to roll a joint, totally silent.

Jacob didn't even ask about it; he thought weed itself was gross, but not when a hot, naked girl was doing it right as he was about to bang her. He wasn't an idiot. He felt himself growing harder and harder as she licked the paper to seal the joint. She gave him a mischievous smile when her gaze met his, and he thought he was gonna fucking _explode_.

With the unlit joint between her lips, she helped him put the condom on. As she was on top, she slowly started to slide herself onto him, and she lit the joint as she went through the motions, the flame slightly illuminating her face. He helped her out by guiding her by the hips.

She inhaled long and hard, flexing against him, and finally exhaled as she was set onto him, the joint between her fingers. "Oh, my God," she moaned with a sigh as the smoke trailed from her mouth.

"You okay?" he asked.

She nodded and tilted her head back, closing her eyes. "Yeah."

Then she started to move her hips, grinding onto him slowly just to get a good feel of him. She took another hit of the joint and passed it down to him; he took a shitty, unproductive hit, clearly inexperienced in regards to weed. He was brand-new to her and all that she was. He worked on finding his rhythm, and she quickly followed.

Bouncing into his lap, she set the joint down next to them after a couple more hits of her own and put her hands down onto his chest, running her fingernails along his abs occasionally. As he continued to guide her hips, she started to moan. For a beginner, he had a good idea of what he was doing—he wasn't that bad. And she was so little, but she was really taking all of him well. They were good together.

"Oh, fuck," she groaned.

"You like that?" he asked.

"Yes," she hissed.

"Tell me you like it, baby."

She leaned forward, kissing at his throat. He took one hand away from her hips and cupped her breast, squeezing hard. She just continued to moan into his skin, not caring how loud she was.

Then he moved his hand from her breast and tugged her hair back—apparently girls liked that. He knew Bella did when she moaned even louder at the force.

"Tell me you like it," he told her again, bucking his hips harder.

"I like it," she whispered.

"Say it again."

"Oh, fuck, Jake, I like it," she cried out. "Don't stop."

She put her lips on his and he moved faster underneath her, keeping one of his hands busy by rubbing her where she needed it, and the other squeezing her ass. She whimpered as she started to tremble. Her muscles were shaky and her core was tight. She brought her own hand down to touch herself, and she was practically screaming.

Jacob kept going, not breaking focus once, and Bella was moaning so loud that they didn't even hear the park ranger approaching the beach. All it took was her to open her eyes once and see the smallest trace of a flashlight before she separated from Jacob immediately.

"What the—?"

She shushed him. "Park ranger," she whispered, grabbing a hold of her belongings.

He quickly got up and started to put his shorts on, but she grabbed those from him. "Hey, let me put those on," he whispered loudly.

She turned to see the park ranger and his flashlight moving closer. His voice got louder, too, as he asked who was there.

Bella just shook her head at Jacob. "We have no time." Then she picked up the sleeping bag and crumpled it up, tossing it over Jacob's shoulder. She grabbed his hand and started running nowhere in particular, just away. He followed.

"Go, go, go, go, _go._ "

* * *

They ended up behind a huge driftwood tree, way off from the campground, which was a good thing since they didn't get caught in the end. The park ranger eventually decided that he was way too far behind to even bother chasing them. Jacob and Bella set the blanket down on the sand again, and picked up where they left off.

When they were finished, Bella began to roll another joint. Prepared to light it, she ran her hands along the sleeping bag, searching for the lighter. She felt nothing.

"Looking for your lighter?" Jacob asked.

"Yeah. Help?"

He put on his shorts and helped her look for it, trying to come down from all that had just happened, but they had no such luck. Bella, still naked, let out an exasperated sigh.

"I hate myself," she said.

"What, why?" he asked. "'Cause you left your lighter?"

"'Cause I'm _stupid_ enough to leave it. I'll be right back."

She started to get up, but he grabbed her hand. "Wait," he said. "Are you really gonna risk getting caught again?"

"I'm not gonna get caught," she assured him.

"The guy might still be trying to look for us."

"I just need to go back and get what's mine."

"C'mon, Blue," he said softly. "Stay."

"Why?" She sounded like such an asshole; he was so nice that he didn't deserve it.

"We need sleep," he told her. " _You_ especially need it. You can light up in the morning, but we should just sleep for now."

She considered it, and then said, "Fine. But we're not going back to the campground."

"Wasn't planning on it."

She laid down, and he followed. Wrapping his arm around her and putting his face in her hair, he got comfortable. She pressed her bare backside towards him, arching her back a little as she rubbed against him.

He felt a jolt and then groaned. "Not fair."

Her laugh was breathy. "Sorry."

"I love you," he said.

"That has got to be the biggest mistake you've ever made, Black."

"What? Saying I love you?"

"Yeah."

"Blue, I don't think that's such a mistake."

She bit her lip. "Okay."

And they went to sleep. Nothing was wrong in the world at the moment.

* * *

The sun had barely risen when Bella lit up again and Jacob asked her the sweetest question ever. The six words were just normal, everyday words, but the order he put them in and the way he said them made her elastic heart flutter.

"When can I see you again?"

With her head up in the clouds, she realized that he did care about her. About them. He cared so damn much that she wanted to cry because she didn't take it half as seriously as he did.

She took another drag of the joint and kept it in her mouth for a while, to let it take its place in her throat, to never leave. Then it started to creep from a crack in her mouth, and swirled about between her and Jacob's faces.

"Soon," she told him.

"Soon?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Soon. Don't call me, though, okay?"

"Why?"

She smiled. "'Cause I'll call you."

* * *

The next day, she called him. She didn't call until about one in the afternoon, but she certainly called. He still hadn't recovered from their camping trip, but she was ready to keep moving.

She drove to La Push without any plans in mind. The best things happened whenever she didn't have plans, but all she knew was that she had her weed and she had Jacob. What else did she really need?

Billy was gone when Bella arrived, having gone to visit Sue, which was perfect. Jacob and Bella were left alone, and they couldn't get enough of each other. Being around her again wasn't going to ease his recovery, but being with Bella wasn't easy for him; it was a challenge, especially since she was going to end up saving him. He could see it already. He was probably crazy, but Bella was teaching him how to _live_.

How had he been so content living a dull, mediocre life without the presence of Bella Swan? She was all he knew now.

So they were left alone, and he took her to his bedroom. Wordless, they sat down on the bed. She kissed him, and in between kisses, he managed to say, "I had a really good time with you yesterday."

"Me, too," she said, unbuttoning his shorts.

He had a really good time today, too, because when it was all said and done, he felt euphoric. Jacob Black was living in heaven due to Bella Swan. He didn't know what Earth felt like anymore, at least for a little while. He was very much back on Earth when he looked down at his sheets and realized that they'd ruined them.

"Well, shit," he said.

"We need to wash everything," she said. "My clothes are ruined."

"Mine, too."

"Goddamn it."

He threw everything in the laundry as Bella took a shower, and he prayed to any and every God that ever existed that his dad wouldn't come home in the next two hours. It was already two thirty, and Bella wore nothing but one of Jacob's white t-shirts once she got out of the shower. The shirt just barely covered her ass, and it was a wonderful view, but if Billy came home to see any of this, Jacob wouldn't live to have sex with Bella ever again.

Jacob, in nothing but another of his dwindling pairs of shorts, stood in the kitchen with Bella as they made lunch. Her hair was up in a messy bun at the top of her head as she cooked chicken on the stove. She looked so cute he couldn't even believe it. And he tried to focus on boiling pasta correctly, but all he could focus on instead were her breasts, right under his t-shirt. They were just so damn perky and prominent; he couldn't look away.

"Quit staring," she said as she elbowed him. "I'm hungry and not in a mood to waste perfectly good food."

"Sorry, Blue."

The screen door swung open and a voice bellowed, "Ayo, Jake, you in here?" Before Bella and Jacob could do anything, Quil and Embry entered the kitchen.

"Looks like we're just in time," Quil said. "I'm starving." Then he caught a glance of Bella, who had her arms crossed over her chest.

Embry raised his eyebrows. Quil just waved. "Hey, Bella," he said.

She gave a subtle wave back with a small smile. "Hey, Quil."

Jacob pulled Quil towards the back door while Embry awkwardly made conversation with Bella.

"So, uh," Embry began, "what'd you think of that movie we all saw on Friday?"

"It was okay. Nothing special."

"That's true, I guess..."

When Jacob had Quil out of Bella's earshot as they stood in his backyard, he shoved him in the chest. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

" _Chill_ , Jake," Quil said. "I was just dropping by. I do this just about every damn day. You forget or something?"

"Knocking is a thing, you know."

"Sorry, I didn't think I'd walk in on you and Bella fucking."

"We were _not—_ "

"And might I add," Quil interrupted with an impish grin, "she is _fiiiiiine_. Probably the finest white girl I've ever seen around here. You've gotta be giving her some good dick if she's still with you."

"Don't you have a fifteen-year-old to be fingering?" Jacob asked.

Quil's smile dropped. "One, she's almost sixteen. And two, fuck you."

"Doesn't even matter. I'll sic Leah on you in a hot second."

"You wouldn't."

"Oh, I would."

"You're a real bastard, Jake. What do you want, anyways?"

"Well, since you're here, I kind of need your advice."

"On…?"

"Bella. What the fuck else?"

"Okay, then, shoot."

Jacob sighed. "She smokes weed."

"I know," Quil said. "I sold it to her."

"What do I do?"

"Well, do you like her? Like, _really_ like her?"

 _I think I fucking love her._ "Yeah," he said dumbly.

Quil slapped his hand on Jacob's shoulder. "Then you live with it," he told him with a nod. "It shouldn't really fuck with you guys that much, and you might just like it."

"Thanks, man."

"No problem. Your friendly neighborhood stoner is always here to help."

"Okay, now get the hell out of my house."

With a little more convincing, Quil and Embry finally departed, and Jacob and Bella finally finished making lunch. They sat down to eat at the kitchen table.

They were silent as they ate, and Bella looked up at him. "What are you thinking about?"

"Our first date," he said.

She started to blush. "Oh, _God_ , no."

He laughed. "What?"

"I am still so, _so_ sorry for that."

"It's okay. You just weren't yourself then."

She nodded. "Yeah. Isn't it kind of crazy how that was almost a year ago?"

He thought about it. "You're right. That _is_ kind of crazy."

"Funny how time flies," she said musingly.

"Funny."

* * *

The entire next week flew by so fast that neither of them could believe it. Bella and Jacob were completely caught up in each other, and in their time away from Earth, nothing really happened. Life outside of Jacob and Bella—Black and Blue—had paused, waiting for them to return at any given moment.

They spent the next day, Monday, at her house. She had a day off, and spent its entirety with him. The second Charlie had left for work was the second she had called Jacob. The day was something like a routine: sex, breakfast, sex, shower, sex, lunch, sex, shower, nap. And when Charlie came home, Jacob and Billy were invited over for dinner. It was at the dinner table when Bella confirmed she and Jacob were officially dating (though it sounded like they had gone through the stages of courtship, the way she said it), and she could practically see Charlie mentally soar with happiness. She was over Edward. And it was true—they had stopped talking after their interesting phone call.

For the rest of the week, Bella and Jacob fucked everywhere else. He got better at it in no time; by Friday, he could almost keep up with her. On Tuesday, they fucked on the beach again. Wednesday, they fucked in his car, and Thursday, they fucked in Quil's ambiguous pickup truck, the one he kept in the middle of nowhere and hardly drove, where they were nearly caught. Jacob and Bella had laughed it off once they knew they were safe, though. Jacob had called their week of infinite nakedness the "Fucking Olympics," and Bella nearly died of laughter. She was a little high for most of the week, but that didn't do anything but make it better. By Wednesday, he even started to get high with her. He got over his aversion to weed very quickly.

The following Saturday night was date night. Sober, they went to dinner and a movie. They went to the restaurant that they'd gone to on their first date, the burger joint in Forks. He originally planned on taking her to the coffee shop in Port Angeles since it was close to the movies and everything, but Embry worked at the coffee shop now, and Jake didn't really want to run into him. So over dinner in Forks, Jacob said to Bella, "You still haven't told me your story."

She was sober, so she told him—finally. Over burgers and fries and milkshakes, she told him how she had been to every state in the entire country, and how her mother was now happily married to a guy who couldn't accept her depression. She told Jacob how she had been with her ex for a long time, but he hadn't been able to accept her depression, either. She even told Jacob that she had tried to kill herself in the spring of her freshman year—on May thirteenth, to be exact—and that sometimes she still felt guilty that it hadn't worked because her mom and stepfather wouldn't have to invest so much time and money into a broken cause if it did. She told him that she tried to kill herself again right before graduation because she hadn't gotten into Dartmouth, her top college pick and the only school she had even applied to, and now she had no more dreams and no more aspirations. At least, nothing real. She told Jacob that Charlie didn't know about the majority of this, and that was what she thought made them so distant. She told Jacob that she had stopped taking her antidepressants a long time ago, and that she liked to do Valium now, sometimes, and she told him that she hated herself every single day for being like this, but being around him made her feel better. It really did.

And she told him that she was honest, and would be nothing but honest to him.

Then she told him she loved him. She didn't tell him to what extent, but she told him she loved him.

"I love you, Blue," he told her. "So much."

* * *

Dinner had been liberating somehow, but the movie was something else. It made her feel like a prisoner.

She immediately regretted letting Jacob into her mind like that. She knew he would run away. She knew that he'd realize that she was more than just tired, dying eyes and semi-deep speeches about living life to its fullest. He'd see the helpless wreck that Edward had seen, and he just might go away because of it, just like Edward had.

But she tried to block it out of her mind during the movie. She soberly focused on loving him the best that she could because he was a good guy and he deserved a good girl. She tried not to think about how fabricated she truly was to him. She was as fake as they came; she was the kind of person she looked down upon. From the start, she had known she could influence Jacob in the way that she had, and she had known exactly what he'd see her as: an escape, or a savior. She had invented herself to be this fake, wild dream girl, and he had fallen for it. Now she was upset because she felt as fake as she had made herself out to be. Her fucked-up logic wouldn't work for her now. She had trapped herself.

With red in her cheeks, swollen lips, and an air of shame, she returned to her house that night silent and regretful.

 _I never change_ , she thought, _and I never learn._

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _I'll update Wednesday._

 _HS_


	24. XXIV

_**A/N:** I own no part of Twilight, but if this chapter looks somewhat familiar, then that's because part of it was lifted from one of my fics, Injustices of the Worst Kind. Listen, Static has been in the works for a while now._

 _This chapter was inspired by Halsey, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and a little bit of Paper Towns even though I don't like John Green. So here is chapter 24. It has m_ _ore Jacob x Bella like the last chapter, just not in the same way._

 **XXIV.**

 _oh, baby, beggin' you to save me_  
 _though lately, i like 'em crazy_

* * *

A long time ago, when she had thought she was just _sad_ and would only be _sad_ , Bella would read. On good days—or worse days, when she thought back on them—she would go to the public library just down the street from her home in Phoenix and stay forever. She would stay until someone—either Renee or Phil—would notice she was gone. She hadn't hidden in the library since she was fifteen, but that might change today.

The public library of Forks was pitiful. Bella had only visited once in the past, and it had been more than enough. It made her want to cry. It was small, and not in a positive way. Small libraries usually had a lot of heart put into them, but not this one. It was not cared for at all; it was just _there_. It was just another attraction in the big, fake amusement park that the world was.

Bella needed to infuse some care, though. It was the only place she had left to do that. It was too late for Jacob, since she had been so deceiving the entire time, and far too late for her.

It was a luminous Sunday morning in June, but Bella felt like a stormy night in November. After entering the public library right as it opened, she hid in the stacks. Nobody noticed her or the fact that she didn't have a card. She loved libraries so damn much for that reason alone: you don't have to have a pass to enter. You come as you are, and leave just a little smarter if you're lucky. That wasn't her point, though—not today. She couldn't fix anything about her broken mind, as hard as she tried.

The previous week had been a hurricane. It had been beautifully chaotic for Jacob, but for Bella? Not so much.

 _You're just a fucking idiot,_ she told herself. _You can't just give yourself over and over to someone you hardly even like to get over your piece-of-shit ex-boyfriend and constant feeling of self-hatred. That's not how things are supposed to work. You were born to be alone and you don't belong to anybody._

The only thing worse than what she had done was that she would have to now break off everything with Jacob. And even worse, it was like Leah had made her do it, even though that wasn't the truth. Bella didn't know or even like Leah that much, so the pathetic threat last weekend hadn't meant anything, but it might as well mean something now.

Bella didn't like Jacob the way he liked her; she didn't see him in whatever future she'd have when she looked in his eyes. She didn't want to give him a future that dim, either. She didn't want to hurt him, though—she had never wanted to hurt anybody. Ever since she had been sixteen, just getting in touch with her level of fuckedupness, she had known that she would never want to harm anyone close to her because she had understood. Being so far from the inside of things, she had often watched people, and she had understood them. She had understood—and still understood—that everyone was just trying to get through what they had to get through in order to move on the better and brighter things in life, and for her to make that any more difficult for anyone else would be the worst thing she did.

Jacob could do far, far better than her. He had to know that he couldn't live through her and her wild-eyed ways when she was hardly living herself. Everyone loved Bella's crazy ass until her ass was actually crazy, and Jacob was just another guy to do that.

But he was such a nice guy. He would never get it as long as he saw the best in people, and the best in Bella.

Bella tried to not be a bad person; she truly did, at least to others. She tried to remind herself of all that, but things never clicked in time.

Maybe that was just what she hated about herself the most: she had the right intentions when it came to other people, but they never come off the right way. What was the point of even trying, then?

* * *

In La Push, Jacob woke up alone, the scent of Bella on his body (the odd combination of honey and lavender), the taste of her on his lips (strawberry and the shame of marijuana), the sound of her in his ears ( _God, Jake, that's so funny and you're so funny_ ). He supposed that was the second best thing, since Bella wasn't the kind of girl one would wake up with on a daily basis. Aside from the lucky times he'd seen her wake up, he was more familiar with the girl who he'd soar through the sky with at one in the morning but see her again only five short hours later. But she was not the kind of girl to wake up with. She was a wanderer.

Sadly enough, Jacob loved her. He loved everything about her, but only selectively. He loved the crazy side of her, the side he had just spent a week with in its entity. That side got him to go camping on the beach, smoke weed (and not die from coughing fits), discover the importance of sex playlists, have deep conversations on top of a cliff, and blow some time off at the movies.

Jacob didn't prefer the other side—the side that had recently admitted how much she didn't want to live anymore or how much of an idiot she thought she was—but he found it beautiful. He couldn't ignore it like her ex had, so he thought of it like something awesome, something worth being proud of. He truly thought he was being a good boyfriend when he did this.

So maybe he didn't truly love her; he only loved bits and pieces of her, and claimed he loved the rest (though it was for the wrong reasons), but he loved the idea of loving all of her, and there didn't seem to really be a difference. He loved everything physical about her from the paleness of her skin to the pools of chocolate that were her eyes to her ski-slope nose to her rare but beautiful smile to her uneven lips to her legs that stretched for miles to the wideness of her lovely hips, and if he could love that, he could love the hurricane going on inside. It was bound to be as beautiful as everything else.

He didn't know why, but he felt as if she had changed his life for the better _and_ the worse. Before he had met her for the second time, for that awfully strange date, he had woken up expecting nothing but the same mediocrity he had lived in for his entire life. He used to wake up with no hope or enthusiasm for his day, for no one to make his day a little better. Now he woke up with confidence, excitement, and fear all at the same time, and there was something good about that. He knew it. He hoped Bella knew it, too.

After he had dropped her off at home last night from their movie date in which they hadn't really paid attention to the movie, Bella had seemed… off. Even though being off all of a sudden was her thing, her trademark, Jacob had felt it. He would have called and asked later, but he had known that would get him nowhere. It never had before. She lived on her own terms; that was one of the two things they have in common. The other thing was that they weren't supposed to want much or dream big because of who they were and where they lived, and it was one of the most depressing things he had ever heard.

Jacob got out of bed and decided to go see her. They had never established "visiting hours," but they never had to; even when they didn't completely understand each other, they still did. He was going to be the surprising one this time. With a little pep in his step, Jake threw on jeans and a t-shirt and made his way to his car, which also had _Bella, Bella, Bella_ signed in it, as well as on it. She couldn't _not_ leave her signature wherever she went, even if she tried.

* * *

In the library, Bella strolled through the young adult section. She used to live here, back when she had been ten. She had felt like a rebel for reading material for the younger set of adults before she had even been a teenager, but now she couldn't help but feel and accept her age. And she hated it, too. She really did. Her mother, Renee, recently got into these kinds of books—Bella recognized most of the titles. Renee practically demolished these books, which put a weird taste in Bella's mouth. These specific books were meant for _her_. These books had been written by some middle-aged authors with the idea of _Bella_ in mind, and for Bella to have that taken away by her mother hurt. When Renee didn't completely ignore her daughter, she took away what was rightfully hers and made her grow up instead, which Bella viewed as an injustice of the worst kind.

Then again, as Bella looked at the summaries of these books, she must admit that Renee could have them. She could have all of them since they sounded like bullshit. Back when Bella was a kid, she had read everything. Now she chose books with caution—often with so much caution that she never finished them. She now picked up a book with a cover that intrigued her, but after reading about it (and flipping to the last page), she wanted to cry. She'd had that feeling a lot these days.

 _That girl is me._

Based on what she read in the summary, the story was about an incredibly plain guy whose life was so utterly lifeless until he met some otherworldly lunatic of a girl who lived life on the edge and made his life take a turn for the better and the worse only for something horrible to happen to her and leave him completely static again.

Maybe Bella had a stalker who managed to see into the future, too, because this sounded a little bit too much like her and Jacob and where they were headed if she didn't break things off quickly, and that was just a little bit too unpleasant.

Shaking her head and flipping through the book's pages, Bella couldn't keep herself away. The book had Post-It notes with thoughts in different handwriting and folded pages throughout it—it was examined. It was loved. This horrible book was adored by so many people, and Bella couldn't see why. She suddenly slammed the book shut before its secrets and messages could fly out like bats out of hell, but she couldn't bring herself to set it down. That was kind of her life she was holding, as much as she hated to admit it.

She must not have noticed anyone behind her, but when she turned around, she saw Jacob. As much as she didn't like him as much as she could, she could never get sick of looking at him. His russet skin and short black hair were lovely. They made her feel somewhat warm. His height and size made her feel secure. Her heart made her feel lonely. The universe could really suck ass sometimes.

"Bella," he said, relieved in a way.

"Jacob," she said, not able to determine how she felt to see him here.

"What are you doing here?" they asked each other at the same time. Jacob chuckled; Bella fakes a laugh because her nerves were in the way.

"I like books," she said, gesturing to the horrible one in her hand. "You?"

"I was gonna go to your house," he admitted, "but I saw your truck here and, well, you can see it from anywhere." He chuckled again.

"Oh. Did you want to talk to me about something?" she asked, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear. She hated her big ears, but she hated a lot of things about herself and Jacob was already aware of them. As much as she didn't exactly love him, he knew her, and she had never meant for that to happen because it complicated everything. Then again, him not knowing her would have complicated everything, too. They had been made to be difficult. Wasn't that easy to see?

"Uh," he said, struggling to find a decent way to tell her no. He could easily just _say_ no, but he didn't want it to come off that way. "Not really." _Smooth as hell._

"Jake," she began, "why do you like me?"

Jacob found himself at a loss for words. "What—what do you mean?"

"I mean what I said," she replied. "Why do you like me?" She held her tongue from asking cutting questions that would only lead to his heart breaking at the wrong thing, and if she was going to break him, she was going to break him the right way: with honesty.

"Bella, I like you—I _love_ you—because you're amazing. And the thing with that word— _amazing_ —is that people use it on stupid shit. People describe a stupid-ass cat video on the internet as amazing, or some action-packed trailer for some stupid-ass movie as amazing, or the homeless guy doing stupid-ass standup comedy down the street as amazing. The word is so overused that when people finally get married or hold their newborn baby in their arms for the first time, they can't use that word because they've already wasted it on some stupid-ass cat video on the internet. But, Blue, I don't use that word for just anything—I really don't. I reserved it for you because _you_ are amazing in the entire sense of the word. You define _amazing._ You changed my life—"

"Jacob, don't," Bella whispered, but he kept going.

His eyes were nearly animated as continued his spew, and from here, there's no way to stop it. "You changed my life, and I need you to know that. Just before the time we started dating, and especially week we spent together, I felt so dead inside. I did, and I didn't know why, but _goddamn_. I saw the light when I first spent time with you and it lasted all through the times I spent without you—"

"Please—"

"—And there's nothing more I want to do than be with you all the time. I hate to say it like this, but I'm going to be honest: you're almost an addiction." His voice grows louder. "You know that? I can't stay away from you, and even as I know for a fucking fact that you want almost nothing to do with me since I'm so boring compared to you, I acknowledge the _almost_. I acknowledge the part of you that does want to be with me, and that's what's keeping me hanging on. That's literally it and I—"

Her voice was as loud as the pages of a book flipping. "Stop."

"I love you, Bella Swan," he said, loud enough for the entire library to hear. "I love you and all your craziness."

"Stop it!" she exclaimed.

His rant was over and he hung high and dry, just realizing what he said, but before he could apologize, Bella went on a tangent of her own. She certainly had enough time to think about it, and the novel she continued to grip gave her some sort of power because _she was not going to be that girl for Jacob_. She refused.

"I can't believe you're making me tell you this," she said with furrowed brows, "but I'm not your manic pixie dream girl, Jake, and I thought you were smart enough to see this. You know that, right?"

His eyes remained glued to hers, listening, absorbing.

"Damn, Jacob…" She trailed off. Then she got the courage to keep going because if she never explained herself, he'd never know the truth.

"I mean," she said, "I'm not here to complete you or take you on some cliché, whirlwind adventure that you'll find in some romance novel today, like this likely piece-of-shit book I'm holding in my hand right now. I'm not here to make you feel… _alive_ or appreciate life a little more, if that's what you've been trying to get me to do. My goal isn't to specifically change your life, all right? _All right_? I already have a hard enough time trying to live my own, and I can't be your only source of happiness. I can't.

"Guys like you, Jake, they never learn shit about girls like me. I don't know why I thought you were different—probably because you're so damn nice and you'll follow me anywhere—but you're really no different from any other guy. I'm just looking for my _own_ peace of mind, and my _own_ reason to live, and you living through me makes you look fucking selfish. More than that, it makes you look stupid as hell because my problems aren't anything _beautiful_ or _fun_ or _adventurous_ like you've been seeing it as based on the little time you've actually spent with me. You don't fucking _know_ me, Jacob. You don't know the first damn thing about me. I told you my story last night, but you didn't listen to what I was saying. You're just as bad as my ex because you hear what you wanna hear and you see what you wanna see all through some fucking filter to make yourself feel better, like you're doing me any favors by seeing me as an idea or a project rather than a person. So listen close. I'm just here to walk the sidewalks and smell the roses and breathe the air. So please… _please_ don't make me the reason for every step you walk or every scent you intake or every breath you breathe, just because you think it'll liven you up. That's not my job—that's yours."

Before he could say respond, Bella—running on fumes—turned and left the young adult section, the library, and possibly his life. All that was left of her was a trail he couldn't seem to follow this time.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I'll see y'all Friday._

 _Up next: the aftermath of Jacob x Bella (the first movement) and the dawn of true feminine camaraderie._

 _HS_


	25. XXV

_**A/N:** Dearest reader, I own no part of the Twilight Saga. And warning: this chapter mentions rape._

 **XXV.**

 _part-time love is the life round here_  
 _we're never done_

* * *

Bella received a call from a familiar number—a number she had long deleted—that evening.

Her heart didn't flutter this time; it just sank deeper into the pit of her stomach. There was nobody on this planet she'd be okay with talking to this time. Not even her mother. That trust had been long broken. Bella just wished to be swallowed up by her bed and never resurface.

Her voice was thick and she felt the tears boil behind her eyes. "Yeah?" she asked, trying to refrain from breaking down already.

"I miss you, baby," the familiar voice said. "When can I see you?"

"Are you in town?"

"Yes. Get ready and I'll pick you up."

He was so ambiguous and not detail-oriented this time around. He didn't plan any of this. He was being more rash than she was used to. Something was wrong, but she didn't know what. She didn't think she wanted to know.

"When?" she asked.

"Soon, baby," he told her. "Soon."

* * *

Bella and Edward went to a place they hadn't been to together since they were sixteen and carefree: the coffee shop in Port Angeles. In more recent times, he was more fond of the nicer places and showing her the finer side of the badlands, if there was one.

Tonight, he didn't care to plan anything, and Bella was horribly overdressed, clad in the nicest top and skirt ensemble she owned. She even wore the ring on a necklace, but it was tucked underneath her shirt. He hardly even noticed—or so she thought.

Edward talked to her like he hadn't broken up with her, like they'd only been on a break. He talked to her like nothing had happened between now and last Christmas when he'd broken up with her. It was incredible, really—he was so fake.

They were kind of perfect for each other.

But as he continued to talk, probably just to hear himself speak rather than carry a conversation, none of his words did anything for her. She realized she was emotionally drained. After breaking up with Jacob, she had driven home and went straight up to her room. She had entered the house with tears in her eyes—not for Jacob, but for how angry she was at herself—and Charlie couldn't get any details out of her no matter how hard he tried. They were so distant he'd never know the truth again. She had been awake for only a few minutes when Edward had called her, and she still wasn't really awake yet. Would she ever feel awake again? She didn't know. But she was so emotionally exhausted it was hard to hear what he was saying. It was hard to hear or feel anything.

"Bella?" he asked for the fourth time. His voice was gentle.

She blinked and focused again. "Sorry," she said.

"Did you hear anything I just said?"

"No, sorry. I zoned out. What did you just say?"

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I said I only came here to take back what's mine," he said. His voice was firmer now like he'd worked up the courage in her mental absence to say this. But he had too much courage for his own good. That was why he had her so wrapped up in him, and for so long.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I need the ring back."

She furrowed her brows. "What, did you find someone else to give it to?" She tried to not sound upset, but she couldn't help it. How had he found somebody to replace her so quickly? She still loved him—in a way. How had he gotten over her so easily?

It just wasn't fucking fair. She couldn't believe it. She wouldn't believe it.

"I haven't found anybody," he told her. "But I need it back."

"You came to visit me and take me out for a _ring_?" she asked, tears stinging her eyes.

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid_ , she thought. _You're not supposed to cry over him—not anymore._

"Yes," Edward replied, his voice stoic. "So where is it?"

Bella could feel the necklace the ring was hung on, under her dress. Ever since she had received it—in Seattle after her second summer with him—it had become a part of her. She hadn't worn it when she had been with Jacob, of course, but she wore it through any and everything else.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she lied lamely. "I don't have it."

Edward swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing once. "I know you have it," he said, his voice as sharp as a needle, "so where is it?"

"I don't have it," she repeated.

"Don't tell me you've lost the ring."

"It's not like we're married."

"True," he agreed. "If we were married, you wouldn't be stupid enough to lose a damn ring."

Bella was shaking with anger; her tears were threatening to escape and ruin everything even further. "It's just a ring," she told him weakly.

"Then give it back," he commanded, his hand held out, just waiting. His green eyes were mean and unforgiving. They also wouldn't take no for an answer.

She took the necklace out from under her shirt and cradled the ring in her hand before slipping the entire necklace off of her. She crumpled up her fist and slammed it into his open palm. And just like that, they meant nothing to him.

He promptly closed his hand over the necklace and ring, and her tears escaped, coming out slowly, one by one.

"I hate you," she told him, her voice cracking. "I hate you so much."

His face stayed the same as he shook his head. "No, you don't," he said. "You could never hate me."

"I should," she said, completely still now. "I should hate every single thing about you."

"But you don't."

"I don't, Edward," she said through her teeth. "I really don't."

* * *

She didn't plan on going back to his house with him—she didn't plan on anything. And when she really thought about it, she had never, ever planned on letting him influence her like this. He had too much power—who ever told him to be that way? Who ever allowed him to shrink her in all the ways that he had?

She could only blame herself.

In the dark of his bedroom in Forks, he laid back against the headboard and lit his joint as she stripped down in front of him, letting her clothes fall into a mess on the floor. He had already stripped her emotionally; the physical part would be a lot easier, so she could do it herself.

"Aren't you proud to be mine?" he asked her as she walked towards the bed and his bare body. "Don't you want to be good for me?"

She was his doll again. _Dress me up, wind me up, let me walk, let me talk. Love me rough, set me down when you're done, and ignore me until you're lonely again._ It was just what she wanted.

Bella leaned onto the bed and brought her face close so he could share with her. She sucked in her cheeks and closed her eyes, letting the smoke invade her lungs. Being sober never really did much for her. Even though she was all sorts of dead, she felt somewhat alive now. Too alive—like a loaded gun.

He kissed her hard, like he wasn't going to see her again, and it was then that she was positive it was over. They had been over for a while now. There was no real correlation between them at the coffee shop and them now, besides the fact that they were both dead. He wouldn't pick her back up whenever he got lonely—he'd just find something newer and shinier to play with from now on.

And when it was all said and done, she felt as used as she truly was. She hadn't wanted to do any of what she had done with him, but she knew that telling him no wouldn't have been okay. It wouldn't have been safe.

When she entered her house late that night, she felt violated, but she couldn't bring herself to accept it. She had known him for so long, and just now he had been so incredibly disrespectful. _How could I have been attacked even though I said yes?_ she asked herself. _I said yes, I said yes, I said yes. I wasn't assaulted. I wasn't raped. He would never let me say that I was._

It was all disgusting. She was filled with resentment for him now, and she knew it would never leave her for as long as she lived.

She also felt incredibly bare without the ring or even the necklace.

How had she not seen any of this coming?

* * *

If there was one thing Bella had ever learned from her mother, it was that she should never date somebody who wasn't proud of her.

Bella knew that Edward wasn't proud of her now, but she wished she had known that sooner, just when he had started to fall out of love with her. After she retreated to her bedroom tonight, Bella thought about the last time Edward had been proud of her. That was the last time they had really been in love.

She had still lived in Phoenix then. It had been the May of her senior year, right before graduation, right before that freezing July, and Bella had planned on killing herself again because she had thought she was a failure. She had only applied to Dartmouth, where Edward had gotten into, but she hadn't been accepted.

Edward visited her that May when she told him how she was feeling. She didn't tell him she was suicidal—he could never let himself hear that—but she told him she needed him badly. That May, he dropped everything and visited her in Phoenix.

Renee loved Edward—Charlie, not so much. So when Charlie arrived in Phoenix for graduation just after Edward did, it took some adjusting. It was surreal for Bella—Charlie and Edward had never occupied the same space prior to this, and Charlie didn't even know how long Bella and Edward had been together. He'd still thought that Bella was hanging around Mike Newton and Jessica Stanley at this time. So Bella had to come clean about some things, but it was all for the best, as Renee promised.

Graduation was even more surreal for Bella. If she could ask her fifteen-year-old self whether or not she saw herself alive at graduation, she wouldn't have been able to say yes. But she graduated. She didn't have any immediate college plans, but she graduated and Edward was there. Edward didn't tell her, but he was proud of her.

After dinner with her family that night, Bella and Edward went to a party one of her friends—a friend she never chose—was throwing, but they couldn't handle it after being there for a maximum of ten minutes, so they took his rental car out to the middle of the Phoenix desert. All they had was a bag of weed, a laptop to watch a movie, and each other.

With the windows up, he lit her joint for her as she held it between her lips. It was somewhat romantic—one of the most romantic things he could have done for her back then.

They were quiet for a while as they watched the movie on his laptop. She didn't even pay attention; she focused more on the desert, and how the clouds were rolling in. They were about to be caught up in a thunderstorm, but she didn't want to leave. She didn't want to be anywhere, but at the same time, she wanted to be everywhere.

"Do you think I'm an absolute idiot?" she finally asked him.

He took a long drag as she waited for his response. Her eyes were watery—she wasn't sure if it was the weed or her emotions. The longer she waited, the worse it got.

"Do you?" she asked, quieter.

"Bella," he began, "I think you're brilliant. I'm always going to think you're brilliant, and I love you more than anything in this world."

"I don't belong in this world," she told him. "I don't have a place."

"You know what? Fuck Dartmouth. Fuck everyone. Fuck 'em. You are so much bigger than this, Bella. So much brighter. You don't even know it, but I do, and I know you're going to make it. You are. I'm positive of it."

Thunder boomed and lightning struck outside the car, but the inside was still.

"How do I know you're being real?" she asked.

"Trust me, baby. Trust me."

He kissed her, and she remembered it being the last time he was nervous to do it. After this, he got hard on the inside. He got tough and fearless and brave and kissing Bella was no big deal. He grew up a lot more after this, but for now, he was still spontaneous and nervous, just like she was. They were on the same level.

They made love during the desert thunderstorm. They didn't stop until the storm was long over. His laptop was dead, but they were alive.

He looked her in the eyes, and she started crying again. She finally knew where she belonged in the world. She was a real girl—a real person, not his doll that he ignored—and she belonged with him.

He was proud of her for being alive.

He remained proud of her for a little while after that. She was supposed to fly back to Forks with him in early-June. The night before their flight, he took her to her favorite park in the neighborhood, near her beloved library. In the dead of the night, they sat on the swings. She idly played with the promise ring on her necklace.

"We should get married," he said to her.

She stopped playing with her necklace, and then she stopped breathing.

"I can't," she told him. She didn't say _not now_ or _when we're older_. She didn't leave her response open-ended at all. Just _I can't._

He had told her that he hadn't had any hard feelings for her, and that he hadn't felt bad. He'd told her that it was okay. He had also told her to not come back to Forks with her.

It was the following July that they had frozen over. The most heartbreaking words she had ever thought in hindsight still haunted her today.

 _And we weren't the same after that._

* * *

"So she just broke up with you in the library?" Embry asked Jacob the next day at the beach. "Just like that?"

Jacob tossed the frisbee to him. "Just like that," he said.

"That's real harsh, bro."

"I know, huh?"

"How's it feel the be a hit-it-and-quit-it?" Quil asked. Embry threw the frisbee over to him, and then Quil threw it to Jacob.

"Feels like a million bucks," Jacob said sarcastically.

Quil ignored his tone. "I mean, you hit it a _lot_ , too," he went on. "You hit that shit, like, _fifty_ times over the course of a week and she quit it so fast."

"Okay, shut the hell up," Jacob said. He threw the frisbee at Embry.

"I saw her last night," Embry said. "It was weird."

"Where?" Jacob demanded.

"At my job—where the fuck else, Jake?"

"Was she with anyone?"

"Yeah, she was with this white guy with reddish hair. She doesn't have any siblings, does she?"

"She said I don't fucking _know_ her," Jacob said bitterly, reflecting on her words, "so I wouldn't know, but I doubt it."

"Well, they were there."

"Did you hear what they were talking about?"

"I was trying to do my job, actually," Embry said, "so no."

"Wow, thanks a lot. You're a real fuckin' pal."

"Chill out."

"Yeah, Jake," Quil said. "She's just some ho, anyway. That was probably her ex that she's so fuckin' in love with. You know how that shit goes."

Jacob just sighed. _Jesus Christ_ , he thought. _I get something good and I lose it right away. What the fuck?_

"Whatever," he said. "Good fuckin' riddance."

* * *

Jacob was at work at the reservation convenience store the next day when the heartbreak started to settle in. What had he done wrong? Okay, well, Bella had told him that in the library, but why had she gotten so mad? Okay, so he knew that, too.

 _I'm a fucking idiot_ , he thought.

He wanted to find her and apologize, but Bella was so beyond him. She was the type to disappear once she decided not be around someone anymore. He'd never see her again at this rate. Even if she didn't accept his apology—and why should she? He was a fucking idiot who was way too immature for her—he just wanted her to know that he was sorry. That was all. He could do the kindergarten thing and have his dad pass a note to Charlie and then have Charlie pass it to Bella, but Jacob wasn't sure if he was that desperate yet.

 _I need a rewind button_ , he decided.

He was fantasizing about going back to the beginning and treating Bella right so he'd still have a chance of having her. He was so lost in his own thoughts that the only customer that afternoon at the store had to tap Jacob's shoulder to get his attention.

Jacob blinked and focused again. The customer was a tall white guy with reddish hair. Jacob didn't know exactly if this guy was Bella's ex, and he didn't really care, either. What was he gonna do—beat him up for being better than him? But Bella had said her ex had treated her poorly. She'd even compared Jacob to the guy. If she had really gone back to this guy—who was already bad—then that said _a lot_ about Jacob.

So Jacob didn't say anything. If this was really her ex, then there were just two awful people occupying the store. Amazing. But it was a white guy with red hair—it could have been anybody from around here, so Jacob wasn't gonna worry about it. He knew Bella was pretty and smart enough to find somebody better. Hopefully, she'd finally stop hating herself and do that. All he could do was pray for her.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Up next: the real dawn of true feminine camaraderie._

 _Take care,_

 _HS_


	26. XXVI

_**A/N:** I now present chapter 26 of Static. We're about a quarter into the story, which I find exciting. I own no part of the Twilight Saga. Enjoy._

 **XXVI.**

 _i don't like how serious they take themselves_  
 _i've always been me, i guess i know myself_

* * *

"Thanks so much, Eric," Kim said, smiling to herself. "I'll be back to work the day after I get home. You have a good holiday, too. Mmm, bye."

She hung up, and then she beamed at Leah like she'd just won a million dollars.

"So it's official?" Leah asked, smiling back.

"It's official."

"Awesome."

Leah, Kim, and Emily would all be getting away to Seaside, Oregon for the Independence Day weekend (and a little longer), and Kim finally came through to request the time off from her job at the gym. She usually took forever with these kinds of things, but as long as she came through, everything would be alright.

It was a calm, still day at First Beach, but Leah was buzzing with excitement. Down here, she got this feeling like everything could happen, and all at once. She wasn't as pessimistic now as she was solely curious. This summer had been full of peculiarities and it wasn't even July yet. She didn't know how to feel about that.

Just about everybody was at the beach. Everyone was so bored and broke but the day was so nice and sunny that it would be pointless to be bored and broke indoors, alone.

Leah's eyes scanned across the sand—everybody was here except for Emily, who would meet up with them later. And Bella, of course, but she was a peculiarity on her own. Leah didn't know for sure what had happened between Bella and Jacob; she'd only heard tons of stories. That was all these people were good for: gossip. It was all he said/she said at this point, and as much as Leah didn't care, she still wanted to know. Had her pathetic threat back at the movies worked? It must have.

Claire was at the beach, too, and she must have heard Leah and Kim talking about Seaside because soon enough, she padded over to the driftwood tree in her lime green flip-flops. Leah couldn't do anything to fully prevent Claire from coming to First Beach to Quil anymore. It had now been a little over a year since Leah first found out Claire and Quil were dating, and the best she could do was watch over her since her mother sure as shit wasn't doing anything. She had relapsed again sometime last spring, and Claire was in the permanent care of her and Emily's grandmother, who was getting weaker with each passing day.

"Are you guys going somewhere?" Claire probed, chomping on her gum.

"Seaside," Kim replied, looking up from her cell phone. She was checking out a list of things to do there, and Leah was looking thoughtfully over her shoulder.

"I know. I just wanted to see if you'd lie to me."

"Okay, then, Claire," Leah said, brushing her off. She swore the girl had one of the brattiest attitudes she had ever seen.

"I wanna go," Claire pried. "It sounds like a lot of fun."

"Trust me," Leah said, "we'll be having _tons_ of fun."

"I wanna go," Claire repeated. "My boyfriend thinks I'm old enough to go."

"Hmm," Leah mused. "I wonder what your boyfriend thinks about your braces."

"What about them?"

Leah just shook her head and rolled her eyes.

Suddenly, Bella popped up at the beach. She had to have been as bored and broke as everyone else. She didn't know where else to go. The aftermath of her and Jacob was still raw, and she realized that all the people she had acquainted with were people she knew through Jacob. She didn't have any real friends—they were all his friends, and she and Jacob weren't on good terms anymore. Bella had chosen nobody but Jacob; she had chosen to be fake, and now that she wasn't with him anymore, she had to fall back on what she knew. She was a wanderer, but she wasn't at all independent or okay with being alone.

Desperate, Bella sat with Leah and Kim upon seeing them. Even when she was alone, she felt somewhat safe around them—even Leah. Somehow, she felt that they wouldn't abandon her. She wasn't usually one to initiate camaraderie (especially that of the female kind), but she was down for anything at this point. And she was choosing her friends this time. She was desperate, but she was strong.

Bella had only sat with them for three minutes before they decided to leave, though. They had plans to make. Big plans. Seaside plans. And Emily was probably waiting for them at Kim's house, anyway.

Kim felt bad for leaving Bella, though, of course, so when Leah had already gone to the car, Kim turned back to Bella.

"Hey," she said. "Do you wanna come with us? We're all just gonna sit around my house and order Chinese takeout, but it'll probably be more fun than being here."

Bella gave a polite smile. "Sure," she said.

"Cool. You can go ahead and follow my car."

"Thanks."

* * *

"Kim," Leah said, staring into the side mirror of the car, "why is that ugly-ass truck still following us?"

"Oh, that's Bella," Kim replied. "I forgot to tell you, but I invited her over to my house to hang with us."

"Oh my Go—"

"I know," Kim interrupted before the complaint fest could begin. "But she's been through a lot lately."

"You sound just like my mom."

"Good. She's always right."

Leah scoffed.

"I still don't know what you have against Bella," Kim said. "What makes her so different from the rest of us?"

Leah shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. She just strikes me as the type of white girl to get angry one day about the censorship of women's nipples and pray about how we are all one race—the human race—but wear a big-ass, fake-ass headdress to some stoner music festival the following weekend while calling her fellow whites the 'N' word without any regards to how wrong any of that is. You feel me?"

"So, anyway," Kim said, completely disregarding Leah's criticism, "Em's getting drinks, right?"

"She's getting her hair done," Leah replied with a sigh, "and a septum piercing, too, 'cause she thinks she's a badass. She said she'd get drinks on the way back, but I don't think I want her to."

Kim's voice remained bright. "Is she still having problems?"

"I don't know. I don't wanna find out, either. I just hope she's been taking care of herself."

"Me too, Lee. Me, too."

* * *

The night was exactly as relaxed as everybody expected it to be. Emily arrived at Kim's house pretty late and without drinks, since her appointments had taken so long, but it was totally worth it. Her hair was now a dark red that made her skin look warmer, and she had a septum piercing that gave her an entirely new edge. She looked incredible.

Since Emily hadn't supplied drinks and Kim really did want to have some, she brought out a bottle of wine from her parents' cellar immediately after ordering Chinese takeout. They wouldn't notice it was gone. Leah stayed away and tried to make Emily stay away, too, but Kim and Bella dove right in. Based on this common interest alone, Bella knew they were going to be good friends.

Emily had brought over her laptop, and the girls huddled around her on Kim's bedroom floor as they looked online for things to do in Seaside. Bella hadn't been invited on the trip, and she hadn't taken any offense to it, but she still wanted to help. Planned trips were fun. Unplanned ones were better.

They hadn't found much online when Kim laid down on her soft white carpet and sighed deeply. "This is so depressing," she said.

Leah ignored her. "You know, Em," she said, "I'm so down for feeding the seals."

"That sounds like fun, huh?" Emily asked.

"Yeah."

Bella gave her attention to Kim. "Is Seaside not your first choice or something?" she asked.

"We wanted to go to Venice at first," Kim said, "but we don't have the money."

"Well, _you_ have money, Kim," Emily said.

"I have, like, forty dollars," Kim replied. "My parents have already put in so much for Seaside."

"Mine, too."

"So you see my dilemma. We hardly even have enough money to go."

Emily closed her laptop and laid down on the floor, propping her head up with her right hand as she faced Bella and Kim. "You know why I wanna get out so bad?" she asked. "Go, like, really far away? 'Cause my parents always leave me alone. They don't check in on me, and they don't even talk to me. If I went far away, it wouldn't matter."

"You can already do that," Leah said. "You're twenty."

"I can't do anything if I'm broke."

"And, anyway," Leah went on, "I _wish_ my parents—my mom, I mean—would leave me alone. She's always on my ass whenever she's home. I need to get far away. I don't think Seaside is gonna cut it."

"I'd pick Venice every time," Kim said, her voice dreamy and somewhere far away. "I bet the sun doesn't even shine in Seaside."

They were all silent for a while until Bella finally spoke up. "You guys mean Venice Beach, right?" she asked. "In California?"

"We clearly aren't talking about Italy," Leah said with a roll of her eyes.

"Thanks for the clarification," Bella replied. "I can get you guys to Venice, though. I have a plan, but it'll only work if I can go with you guys."

"We've all put money into this," Emily said. "We already have a rental house booked and everything. I think you're a little too late."

"C'mon, listen," Bella said.

Leah didn't give her a chance. "No offense, Bella, but nobody asked you. I'd say you're outnumbered."

Bella knit her eyebrows, frustrated, but not willing to give up. "I thought we were all friends here. Can you just hear me out for a second? Because I think it's a good plan and you'll all thank me for it."

"I bet your plan is wonderful," Leah said in a nonchalant tone, "but who said we want to bring you to Venice? You don't know us like that."

"Speak for yourself, Lee," Kim said.

"So what the fuck am I even here for?" Bella demanded, her voice a little louder.

"I don't know—maybe you could give me a fucking clue because as far as I've noticed, you've only been drinking all the wine," Leah said, her voice hard.

"Calm down, guys," Emily said.

"Bella, will you shut up if I hear your little plan?" Leah asked.

"Gladly."

"Then shoot."

Bella told everybody her master plan to get to the promised land—also known as Venice Beach—and it left them all with dropped jaws and wide eyes.

"You're crazy," Emily said.

"Yeah, I think I'd much rather feed the seals in Seaside," Leah said, nodding.

"What are you so afraid of?" Bella asked, her voice simple and low.

"The law enforcement," Leah replied. "Being arrested. Becoming someone's prison bitch. Cops and inmates like white girls like you, but not girls like me, and we both know this."

"Who says we're gonna get caught?"

"Who says we're gonna get away with it?"

" _I_ say we're gonna get away with it."

"Bella, do you actually hear the words that come out of your own mouth? Do you listen to yourself speak?"

"I'd have to ask you the same thing, Lee, because there's no fucking way you know how cowardly you are. You have nothing to lose." Bella gestured to Kim and Emily. " _We_ have nothing to lose."

"We have everything to lose," Leah said.

"Like what—a college scholarship? Oh, wait."

How did she even know that? Bella was fucking ruthless. "Let's say we did follow through with this plan," Leah began. "Why should we bring you to Venice with us?"

"It's my plan, isn't it?"

"It's a stupid one."

"I guess you can stay in Seaside and feed the fucking seals if that's what your heart desires, then." Bella turned to Kim. "Isn't it a good plan?"

"It's not realistic," Kim said, "but it's good. I'm down."

Leah glared at Kim. "Don't be dumb."

"I'm not. It's crazy, but it's good. I think we deserve it."

"What in the hell makes you think that?"

"Lee," Emily said, "we've got nothing to lose."

"So you're in too, Em?" Leah demanded. "Really?"

"It's really not that bad of an idea," Bella said with a smug look on her face. "What's it gonna be, Leah? Are you gonna feed the seals or actually do something with your life?"

Leah stared at Bella long and hard for a while, hoping to turn her to stone. It didn't work. So she just sighed and nodded.

"It's whatever."

* * *

Kim was the lightest lightweight in the history of lightweights. She got a little too tipsy a little too fast and fell asleep on the couch in her bedroom after dancing and singing about going to Venice. She was a cute drunk. And she was funny.

Bella knew for a fact that she didn't want to be the one to carry Kim around in Venice, but she was such a sweet girl that she had to tonight. Kim needed the support more than anyone else, and Bella had a feeling they were going to be close.

Leah fell asleep soon after Kim, but she hadn't had a drop of alcohol. She was just tired. Bella decided that being so mean took up a lot of energy, and Leah must have been fuming at her the entire night to have fallen asleep at eleven thirty.

This left Emily and Bella, with the former girl typing away at her laptop with the latter girl watching. Emily had drunk a bit of wine (after three glasses, Bella just stopped counting), so she didn't care that much that Bella was watching her write.

"You'd write a lot better if you didn't drink," Bella said. _And you've been drinking a lot. Why does nobody care enough to stop you?_

Emily took another sip of wine. "Shut the hell up."

"You know it's true."

And Emily did know, but she didn't care. She didn't despise Bella in the same way that Leah did, but why should she give her the benefit of knowing the truth? Were they even friends?

She kept typing, her long, freshly manicured nails clicking away. Even though she'd thrown away her physical notes from her novel months ago, back in November, she had gotten back to writing it. After reading _The Bell Jar_ and _The Awakening_ , she was feeling all types of inspired. And that was all part of the process: create and destroy and create and destroy and create. Emily was an entirely different person every time she restarted. She didn't know how to feel about it. She didn't mind change, but she did mind not knowing what she had lost and what she would continue to lose as long as she kept changing. Could she ever stop it?

Emily eventually got tired of writing, but Bella stayed awake by watching her scroll through a type of website. It was mostly just pictures. Emily liked pictures of deserts. The pictures reminded Bella of Phoenix. Even though it wasn't home to her—since she didn't have one—she missed it now.

"Do you like the desert?" Bella wondered.

Emily nodded. "Yeah," she said. "But I've never been."

"I'm gonna take you to the Phoenix desert someday, then. I think you could write something really good there."

"Then it's a date."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** In response to some of you guys' reviews, there will be retribution for these characters. These kids are so, so resilient. I promise. This is an ensemble cast piece, and I promise that not everybody is hopeless._

 _Up next: more feminine camaraderie (with a hint of hedonism, naturally) and what it takes to achieve it._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	27. XXVII

_**A/N:** Anything you recognize isn't mine. Now here's chapter 27. It's a short one. Enjoy.  
_

 **XXVII.**

 _i ride, you ride_  
 _bang_

* * *

Twenty-three hours later, Bella slipped on a pair of denim shorts and a tank top. She quickly put on a baggy sweatshirt and laced up her sneakers, and she was ready. Leah, clad in an identical outfit, was also ready. Scared, but ready.

They were supposed to head out of Emily's house and go to where Quil kept his pickup truck five minutes ago, but Kim was running late. Impatient, Leah and Bella were about to go collect her themselves when Kim finally burst through Emily's front door.

"You're late," Leah said. "What's up?"

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Kim said, "I got held up at home. Parents are on my ass about Seaside."

Bella and Leah snickered; Kim rolled her eyes to cover up her nerves. The idea of Venice just didn't seem real.

"So are you sure you don't wanna come, Em?" Kim asked, throwing on a sweatshirt. "We could really use you."

"You guys will be fine," Emily assured her. "You only need one getaway driver."

Kim shrugged. "I guess."

"And my laptop's fucking up," Emily added. "Embry's supposed to come by and fix it later, anyway."

Leah wanted to call her cousin lame, but she held her tongue. It was a good thing that Embry would be with Emily tonight instead of at work, anyway.

"Let's head out, then," Bella said, exiting the house. She paused and turned around to wave. "See you on the flip side, Em."

And with that, Leah and Kim followed her into the dark.

* * *

From Emily's house, it wasn't a long walk to the spot that Quil liked to keep his ambiguous pickup truck. The hidden area was just off the dirt road at the edge of the rez, near the trees.

Kim's whisper was loud over the padding of all their sneakers in the dirt. "Why do we have to take _Quil's_ truck?"

"Shh!" Bella hissed. "But if you need to know, it's ambiguous, he keeps the keys in it at all times, it doesn't have a fucking license plate, he hardly drives it, and he'll be too high to even notice it's gone."

"And you know this much about Quil's truck because…?"

Bella smiled to herself. As much as she was glad to no longer be with Jacob, which meant lying to both herself and him, she'd had a lot of fun with him in the short time they'd spent together. Fooling around in Quil's truck in broad daylight and nearly being caught had been so much fun.

"I've been around," she said to Kim, brushing it off. "Now get in and start driving."

Kim complied, and Bella and Leah hopped in the bed of the truck.

"Do we have everything?" Bella asked.

Leah stuck her hand in the bag between them, feeling around. She felt the masks, the hammers, the "guns," and the backpacks. "Yes."

Bella smacked the roof of the truck twice, saying, "Let's go," and the truck roared to life. They were off.

* * *

The wind was cold against Bella and Leah's faces as Kim drove as fast as she legally could to Port Angeles. The roads were empty, and all the lights were down. The county was as dead as the people who inhabited it—the badlands were nothing but a cemetery. It was about damn time to blow this place. It was so devoid of color that nobody knew what it meant to live here anymore.

It was about damn time for Bella to color in her own world again. How had she ever taken that power away from herself?

Upon approaching the coffee shop, Bella slapped the roof of the truck again, indicating for Kim to slow down. They were here. Bella and Leah hopped out of the truck and paused before they headed towards the front doors. Bella had no fear whatsoever; she must have absorbed all of Leah's bravery, because Leah was fucking terrified.

In the darkness, Leah could barely hear her own voice as her heart pounded frantically in her chest and unavoidably pulsed in her ears. "Are you sure we can do this?" she whispered as she tried to put on her mask.

Bella slipped her ski mask on over her face, and before adjusting it, she brought her hands up to fix Leah's. "What?" she asked. "Do you wanna make Kim do this with me, or do you want me to take your sorry ass home?"

"No. No. I wanna do this."

"Then think of it as… As Halloween or something. Be somebody you're not. None of this is real."

"None of this is real," Leah repeated.

Bella shoved a fake gun in the pocket of Leah's sweatshirt and placed a hammer in her hand. She equipped herself and then threw the bag back into the bed of the truck.

"Now let's fuckin' kill it."

* * *

Kim slowly rounded the diner with the headlights off and the music turned way up. It was Quil's kind of music, for the most part—deep trap shit that nobody else liked or could focus on—but she didn't mind.

She drove carefully as she peered into the diner, watching everything unfold. One second, Bella and Leah, clad in shorts and sweatshirts and ski masks, were smashing windows with their hammers. The next, they were holding fake (but real-looking) guns up to people's heads. And the next second, they were shoving wads and wads of cash into their backpacks and running out. It was all very swift. Like snapshots.

Bella and Leah were back in the bed of the truck in no time, and there was only dust left behind them as they all sped off. The girls in the back were hooting, and even though Kim knew they'd get away, she couldn't get far enough away from the sinking feeling in her stomach.

 _None of this is real._

* * *

The girls dumped the truck at a junkyard in Sequim and then caught an early bus back to La Push. They didn't get back until far past sunrise, and they hadn't slept at all while waiting. Money and goals didn't sleep, and neither did they. (Kim was too scared, but she wouldn't admit it; Leah had gotten over her fear once she got money in her pockets.) Bella and Leah, carefully but inconspicuously guarding the money in their backpacks, talked about all they were going to do once they got to the promised land. Kim stared down at her shoes and wondered if she was going to get new ones on the way.

Emily was asleep on the living couch when the other girls returned, and Embry's arm was wrapped around her in a totally platonic way. Her laptop was on the coffee table; maybe they hadn't made any repairs at all. Leah tried to forget Sam existed. It wasn't hard to forget, though—the guy was hardly home.

"Embry," Leah whispered, poking him in the arm. His eyes started to flutter open. "It's late," she added.

He looked down at his watch and then at his surroundings, realizing he was still at Emily's house. "Shit," he muttered. "I gotta go to work." He quickly stood up and started to put his shoes on.

"Take it easy, man," Leah called as he headed out the front door. "You're gonna need it."

He didn't know what she meant by that—and then Kim remembered that he worked at the very diner that they had just robbed. He hadn't been there at the time of the robbery, of course, but he would see the aftermath this morning.

It left a bad taste in Kim's mouth.

Bella softly poked Emily in the stomach. "Hey, pretty girl," she whispered.

"Wake up, little bitch," Leah said.

"C'mon, Em, can't you smell the money?"

"It's right here for ya."

The other girls kept poking and prodding Emily until her eyes slowly opened. She sat up a little against the couch. "What's up?"

"We did it!" Bella exclaimed. "We did it, we did it, _we did it_!"

"Okay, it is way too early for this shit," Emily said. She looked to Leah, a possible voice of reason. "What happened?"

Leah stood up and dumped the contents of hers and Bella's backpacks onto the couch. Wads and wads of money fell out, along with the hammers and fake guns and ski masks.

"Oh my God," Emily murmured. Then her mouth curled into a devilish smile. "Why are we still here, then?"

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Up next on Friday: more feminine camaraderie and musical references galore._

 _Thanks,_

 _HS_


	28. XXVIII

_**A/N:** Anything you recognize is not mine. This chapter is pretty easygoing. Shit hasn't hit the fan yet, but it will (naturally)._

 _Enjoy!_

 **XXVIII.**

 _i think that i'm feeling the vibe_  
 _i see the love in her eyes_

* * *

"What's Boardwalk Bangers, anyway?"

The girls were on a city bus—as they had been for part of their trip and on a train from Seattle to Los Angeles for an entire day—and almost in Venice. The excitement had been through the roof, then it had died upon staring out at nothing for miles and miles, and now it was lit again, especially for Leah. She just had a certain thing for palm trees, and now she was seeing lots of them. Southern California could be her new home. She thought she just might stay.

"It's a music festival held over the fourth of July weekend," Emily told Leah. She scrolled through her phone, looking for four VIP passes on Craigslist. "It's kind of a big deal. And it's like Summer Jam, but better since it has way more relevant artists."

Leah didn't know shit about Summer Jam, but because Emily was a music fanatic, Boardwalk Bangers had to be a big deal. Leah would take her cousin's word for it. She was just happy to be in _California._ She loved it. She loved all the smog and the palm trees and the pretty people. How could she have ever limited herself to just Washington, let alone La Push? She closed her eyes and pressed her face against the window, taking it all in.

 _All of this is real._

Bella, having been to California only a dozen times before, focused her attention on Kim, whom she sat next to on the hard plastic seat. She'd seen a lot of little Bambi these past few days. Maybe Bella just grew a liking to people the more she saw them. Thing thing is, though, she couldn't see herself getting sick of Kim. They were good friends. Real friends. She had _chosen_ to be friends with Kim, and it had made all the difference.

"What do you wanna see the most here?" she asked.

"I wanna see it all," Kim replied, "but I think most importantly, I wanna see a bed. I'm so tired."

"Me, too."

Kim slumped in her seat and brought her legs up against the seat in front of her. Bella relaxed, too, and they put their heads together. Bella shut her eyes, trying to sleep for the rest of the time, and even though Kim was tired, she didn't want to miss anything.

Bella breathed easy, and she liked the feeling of Kim's hair against her face. This was it. Bliss. She didn't know if she found solace in the atmosphere of Southern California or the girl next to her, but she found it.

She sighed. "Love you long time, baby girl," she whispered to Kim.

* * *

After upgrading their wardrobe and replenishing their energy in their Venice Beach motel room, the girls went to the festival ground just a bicycle ride from the beach, ready to be amazed.

Leah, Kim, and Bella waited around while Emily got their tickets and VIP passes, watching the passersby around them. It was now that Kim realized each passerby's life was just as vivid as hers. Why were these people here? The reason had to matter. Had they also robbed a diner around their hometown? In the groups of friends, who was the Bella, the ruthless leader? Who was the Kim, the supportive lancer? Who was the Emily, the smart one who had stayed home? Who was the Leah, who jumped between the personalities?

Kim didn't want to go back to La Push. She could people-watch all day; it was something special when she didn't already know everyone she saw.

Emily returned with the tickets and passes, and the four of them stood in a circle as she passed them around, as well as pamphlets with the weekend's schedule on it.

"Okay, we need to be methodical about this," Emily said, the sun shining bright behind her. "We can't see everybody all at once, so we need to consider what really matters."

"Let's just see all we can see," Leah said. "This will probably be our only time to do this."

"Right."

"We have to see Tupac today," Kim said definitively, almost defensively, as she stared down at the pamphlet. "That's it."

"Why do we _have_ to see Tupac?" Leah asked.

"What do you mean, 'why do we _have_ to see Tupac?' What kinda stupid question is that?"

"Leah has a point," Bella said. "I mean, I'd rather see Lana Del Rey, anyway."

"Tupac's my baby daddy," Kim said as if it were a fact. "And no one cares about Lana Del Rey."

"How can Pac be your baby daddy even though he was killed when you were, like, two years old, Kim?"

Kim just shook her head and squinted her eyes against the sun's brightness. "Bella, he's not really dead. You know that, right?"

"So why do they have a hologram of him here, then, Kim? At least with Lana we know we'll get the real deal."

"Did you not just hear me say Pac is my baby daddy?"

"You guys both sound dumb as hell," Emily said. "Look, Bella, Lana comes to Washington every single year. We can see Pac today, but we're gonna all miss him if you guys don't shut up."

Bella shrugged. "Whatever," she said, trying to sound indifferent. She wasn't going to let being wrong ruin things so quickly.

* * *

Bella should have kept her mouth shut—Tupac was incredible. So were Drake and The Weeknd, but in different ways. The music festival was, in a word, massive. Crowds and crowds of people filled the festival grounds—it didn't even matter who was performing—and the girls got lucky enough to get VIP passes, meaning they could see whoever they wanted, whenever they wanted. They even got front row spots. In front of a convincingly real Aaliyah hologram, it didn't matter what they'd done to get here because they had finally made it.

What Kim had always thought was true: it didn't matter where she started, but where she ended up.

She ended up in heaven even though she had committed sins to get there, and she was immortal because of it. She felt like god Herself.

The girls left the festival at some point. It was late, but nobody kept track of time. Here in Venice, time didn't matter. It wasn't real. They had been embraced by the magical, electric city. They just might stay.

The rest of the girls had gone to get food when Leah, slightly tipsy and very at ease with it, found a telephone booth in a corridor outside their room, stuck in a couple quarters, and dialed a number. She got cozy on the bench and propped her feet up against her as she waited for someone in particular to pick up the phone.

Paul's husky voice didn't just sound like home—it felt like it, invading every aspect of her being like he was right there next to her. "Hello?"

"Hey," Leah said softly, as if he hadn't burned so many bridges between them. If she was sober, she wouldn't have called, but for now, she'd act like they were okay. It didn't matter too much, anyway.

"It's me, Leah," she added.

"You think I wouldn't recognize your voice? What's up, Lee?"

She sighed in relief that he didn't hang up. He was ruthless in that way. "Nothing much."

"You and the other girls disappeared," he pointed out. "Where've you been?"

"Everywhere and nowhere," she told him, echoing what he had said so long ago, after Prom. Would he remember? Would he even care to try?

"Okay, okay, I did sound dumb," he said, and she could tell he was smiling. "No, but for real, where are y'all?"

"Where do you think we are?" she challenged.

"I heard something about Seaside, but I feel like you'd only call if you were somewhere exciting."

"We're in Venice," she said. "Venice Beach."

"You're shitting me."

"Real shit," she assured him. "The realest shit. We're having _so_ much fucking fun. I was, like, this close to Drake. He's really cute in person. I even saw Tupac. I love palm trees so much and I love the boardwalk and—"

"You're drunk off your ass." It wasn't a question as much as it was a fact.

"Okay, and?"

"And why the hell didn't you invite the rest of us to Venice?"

She laughed—really hard—and sighed. "Your broke asses are lazy," she explained. "You guys have no money and have made no attempts to get any. We fuckin' won, Paul. I won."

She hung up on him, but she didn't leave the booth once she was done. All that could ring in her head was: _I won, I won, I won._

* * *

Under the Venice Beach sun, Bella and Kim lazily walked in the soft sand with laced fingers. Leah and Emily walked far behind them, in some deep conversation of their own as the tide came up to their toes.

"Your hands are so cold," Kim observed minutes later as she and Bella had been walking in silence.

"You're here to keep me warm, then, baby girl," Bella said.

Kim didn't know how to feel being called _baby girl_ , but she didn't want her to stop. "I got you."

Bella smiled and looked up, pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head. "Kim, you are so nice. Who taught you how to be that way?"

 _Nice._ The word rose like bile in Kim's throat. "Constantly being walked all over," she told Bella. "But I'm not nice—not anymore."

"How do you know?"

"I beat this guy's ass back in high school. The asshole had it coming."

"What did he do?"

Kim took a deep breath. She had never told anyone the truth about what happened between her, Mike, and Ashley, but she strangely felt like she could trust Bella. "I kind of had a thing with his sister and he got mad about it, so he tried to fight me," she explained. "I kicked his ass."

Bella didn't bat a lash. "He got what he deserved, then."

Kim nodded. "I know."

"I'm glad you don't let people walk all over you anymore. I used to be that way, and it took me forever to stop. I think it's just that we're too forgiving of people's shit that we want them to change."

"Yeah. Especially guys. We say we hate them until they act kind of human and then suddenly they're forgiven, but they shouldn't be."

Bella shook her head in agreement. "No, they shouldn't. We're better than this, Kim."

"How do you know?"

"'Cause we've got each other. I promise." The words didn't sound true, but they were.

Kim was silent.

"So don't you worry about these boys, baby girl," Bella continued, giving her hand a squeeze, "'cause we don't need 'em."

Kim looked up and smiled at Bella, convinced that she was being honest. The craziest thing about them was that they had a lot in common and didn't even know it. They wanted to see the best in the people they trusted, and they were misunderstood without meaning to be because they were too nice—or they used to be. They had both grown and continued to grow now.

They needed each other's presence to survive in the big, scary world they lived in. It was a mere fact; they just should have known it sooner.

* * *

Boardwalk Bangers was banging. The greatest time of any of the girls' lives, hand down. None of them could even think about coming home and explaining it all—one would have to have been there to understand.

Somewhere between all the beer and weed, Leah found love at the festival. There was this certain feeling she got somewhere between the stunning Aaliyah hologram and the massive performance that was Kendrick Lamar's when she realized she had fallen in love with the world. She had fallen in love with her life again. Before coming to Venice, she had thought all she would ever know was La Push and Forks and the rest of the badlands, but she had made it out. The feeling she had now made her never want to doubt herself or her abilities again.

Sue called Leah on Emily's phone while they were at the motel that night, and Leah went back to the telephone booth.

"Hey, Mama," she said softly, trying to hide the fact that she was drunk and high and something else, too.

"I miss you, sweetie," Sue told her, her voice not as hard as it could be. "I wish you called me first. You had me bundled up in nerves, you know."

"I miss you, too," Leah said. "And I'm sorry for not calling. It's just that things have been..." She struggled to find the correct word. "Crazy." _Or something like that._

"Better not be too crazy. I'll come down and get you."

Leah chuckled. "I know."

"How's Seaside, though? What have you done?"

"Um… It's nice. Real sunny. We fed the seals today. It was a lot of fun."

"Aww, I'm so glad you're enjoying yourself, sweetie."

"Me, too."

"Well, I gotta go now, okay?" Sue said. "Call me tomorrow."

"Of course. Love you."

"Love you, too, Lee."

Sue hung up, and Leah left the telephone booth, padding off to the swimming pool where the rest of her girls were.

"Faded."

"Drank."

"Faded."

"Drank."

Leah rounded the corner and found her girls standing in the more shallow end. She quickly chucked Emily's cell phone onto the poolside lounge chair. Then she stripped off her clothes, revealing a purple bikini, and quickly dipped into the pool. The water was bright blue under the neon lights and very warm. It didn't feel like anything but heaven.

"About time you decided to join the rest of us," Kim said playfully, wading her arms.

"I was busy talking to my _mom_ ," Leah said. "Thanks, by the way, Em."

Emily adjusted the bun at the top of her head, careful not to get it wet and wreck her dye job. "No problem."

"What's that 'drank' song you guys were singing?" Leah asked. "I feel like I've heard it before. I like it."

"That one Kendrick Lamar song," Bella replied.

"I thought you weren't feeling Kendrick," Emily accused. "Since you'd rather see Lorde or something."

"I told you I'm adaptable," Bella replied. "And I actually _like_ Kendrick. He's really good."

"God, we've seen everybody," Leah said, her voice reflective, as if they were already back in La Push. "The boys aren't gonna believe us when we go back to tell them."

"Fuck 'em," Kim said. "They didn't come, so they don't need to know."

"They weren't _invited_ ," Bella corrected. "I think we did a lot better without them."

Leah shrugged and leaned back against the pool, staring down at the water. "Boys have never given me anything but trouble, anyway."

"Me neither," Bella said sullenly. "Right now's my first summer in a long time without a boyfriend. It's weird, but it feels good."

"I wish I knew that kind of loss, Bells," Leah said.

"You don't wanna know, Lee. It used to be really bad."

"Well, you're better than that. I mean it."

Bella looked over at Leah. "Wow," she breathed.

"What?"

"You don't hate me anymore?"

"I never _hated_ you..."

Emily laughed really loud. "You don't have to lie, Lee."

Leah giggled. "Okay, well, like, I never hated you _that_ much," she explained to Bella. "You just kind of annoyed me, but I didn't know you very well. And I'm a world championship shit-talker—I mean, what can I say?"

Bella smiled sincerely. "You're forgiven."

Leah dipped down until her shoulders got wet. She peered at Bella for a second with her eye level just at the water before she stood up straight again. "Never said I was sorry."

"Now I'm offended."

"Shut _up_." Leah went over to hug Bella, and the latter girl gave in.

"Only because I don't wanna have bad blood with you anymore," Bella murmured, her fingers rubbing Leah's back.

"Girl, I've got mad love for you," Leah promised as she let the alcohol do the talking. "Real shit."

"Aww, look at you, getting all sappy."

Bella hugged Leah tighter, and she now realized she had never had anything to be afraid of. Yeah, Leah was a jerk-ass most of the time, but she was sweet at the heart and that was what really mattered. Neither of them had a reason to be scared anymore. When Bella and Leah were together, they were unstoppable. It was how they were here in Venice, after all.

The girls fell silent, and everything in the world was at ease. Finally.

Under the neon lights, Kim held her breath and dropped to the bottom of the pool, taking in all the tranquility before it slipped through her fingers.

* * *

"Mama? It's me, Leah. I'm calling you just like you wanted me to. Just like I promised.

"I'm sorry for understating my time here. Don't let me be misunderstood: I am having the _time of my life._

"There's something about California. I mean, when you take away all the weed and wannabe actors, it really is an amazing place. It's not just earthquakes and starving artists. It's so much more than that. I used to think that there was nothing more than La Push for me, but, Mama, there's way more. Here in California, we can do whatever we want, _be_ whoever we want. We're on top of the world. All of us. Emily and Kim and Bella and me. Yeah, even Bella. I know what you're thinking: I finally stopped hating that girl? It's almost too good to believe.

"Mama, this _experience_ is too good to believe. It's a miracle trip. It fixed everything. It fixed my sense of the world, fixed my vision. I now see the world differently, in more than just black and white. I see the world in more colors and passion. I view people for who they are and who they are trying to become instead of who and what they're running from. But I get who and what they're running from. I really do. And you know why, Mama? Because I know who and what I'm running from, too. And that is the most beautiful thing about this experience: I learned that I don't have to run anymore.

"And I know that this doesn't fix everything back at home. Shit, I know that I still have to _go_ home after all this. But, Mama, I don't ever wanna forget this. I wanna look back on this in a year or ten and be like, 'Damn. I really had the time of my life.' There's no other way to consider it."

The tone on the payphone had already stopped ringing, and Leah realized she hadn't even put in a number. She wondered if there was somebody, somewhere, listening to her. She wondered if they agreed with her.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Up next: run-ins with the law and a savior of sorts._

 _Thank you,_

 _HS_


	29. XXIX

_**A/N:** Anything you recognize isn't mine. Here is chapter 29. (If you didn't read chapter 28, go back and do that.) This chapter starts a couple days after the last one, after kind of a big incident. You'll see._

 _And of course, enjoy._

 **XXIX.**

 _well, i'm the best ever_  
 _but you're so far i had to come get ya_

* * *

"I hate all of you."

"Shut up, Em."

"Yeah, Em, just shut up."

Bella would have said something to Emily, too, but the tight _click_ of the handcuffs around her wrists only solidified her fears. The Venice police officer's hands were rough against her sun-kissed skin as he guided her to the backseat of one of the cars. She slid onto the hard plastic seat next to Kim, and all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and die.

Kim had nothing to say to her. What could she say? While all four of the girls had been at the wild party in a stranger's hotel room (and many other people there had also gotten arrested, too), Bella and Kim had been the more intoxicated ones. Leah and Emily had been the ones to flee at the sign of cops, but the others had stayed behind, clearly preoccupied. So now the sober girls were kind of taking the fall for it. At least they were being arrested for the partying they committed now rather than the armed robbery they had committed earlier. After all, how was Bella supposed to know that snorting Molly from a stranger's dick was illegal?

The girls were taken to a police department about ten minutes away. On the way there, Leah decided she didn't love palm trees that much anymore.

After the booking process, the girls were placed in a holding cell—luckily altogether—where they spent the night. It was the quietest night any of them had ever lived through. Leah yearned for La Push and cloudy days and normal summers. They all did.

After a hopeless court hearing where they were given the choice of either paying a fine that none of them had the money for (since they had blown most of it in a matter of days) or spending two more days in jail, they retreated to their cell.

They were silent until Leah looked to Emily for what to do. Even though Emily had never been arrested before or in any situation close to this one, Leah thought she knew how to remain cool.

"What's next, Em?" she asked.

Emily stared blankly at the floor as she slowly shook her head. "I don't know."

Then Kim pulled her knees to her chest and broke down. Leah had expected that to happen at some point; she just hadn't expected Kim to be the first.

"C'mon, what're you crying for?" Leah asked. It was a stupid question, but she couldn't stand to see Bambi cry.

"We're in _jail_ ," Kim cried out. "We've been _arrested_ , Lee. We have to spend the next two days in here and we don't even have enough money to go home. I just wanna leave. I wanna go home."

"Two days isn't that long," Bella piped up, and it was a damn lie. She didn't know the first thing about jail—none of them did.

"How are you able to keep lying and lying?" Kim accused, her eyes narrowed. "Don't you ever get tired of it?"

Bella would have responded, but she simply had nothing to say. The silence was interrupted when an officer announced, "Call for Isabella Swan."

Without looking back, Bella stood and went to the cell doors. She was let out, and she carefully made her way over to the nearby telephone. "Hello?"

"Hey, baby."

"Edward, what the fuck are you—?"

"Jasper got arrested," he told her. "Crazy partying. The guy can't handle his liquor. I was going to bail him out, but then I saw you got locked up, too."

"So you decided to bail me out instead of your own brother? That's deep."

"I was going bail both of you out," he said, his tone very matter-of-fact, "but if you'd rather stay in jail, then..."

"Oh, I want out," she asserted. She desperately needed his help right now even though she hadn't thought of him since he had broken up with (and raped) her for the last time, but she wasn't about to persuade him with sweetness. She had to be direct.

"Really, now?" he asked, up for a challenge.

"Really," she said sharply. "But I'll have you know that there's four of us. I came here with friends and I can't just leave them behind."

"Then I'll get them out, too," he said simply, feeling like a young god for having such amazing funds.

"Cool. Now, what do I owe you?"

"You don't owe me a thing. Think of this as a favor." She could see him smiling now. She wanted to throw up, but she also wanted to throw up at the thought of jail food.

She considered the gesture. Of course, she didn't want to stay in jail for two more days, but she knew him bailing her out was to keep her quiet. She just didn't know over what yet. He had raped her the last time they saw each other, but did he even know? He had to. He had no other reason to even care about her anymore since he had gotten the beloved ring back, so why would he do her a favor for the hell of it? He had an ego, for sure, but was it really that massive?

Bella knew it was better to not let her suspicions get in the way of her friends being okay again. She thought of Kim, who was pretty much having a breakdown in the cell. She wouldn't last two more _hours_ , let alone two days.

So Bella swallowed all her pride and her anger and said, "Okay."

"And what are your friends' names?"

She told him, and then sighed. "I guess I'll see you soon."

"See you when you get out," he told her.

"Thank you. Thank you so much."

Bella returned to the cell, and Leah didn't hesitate to begin her interrogation. "What was _that_ all about?"

"It was my ex. I don't know how he knows we're here, but he knows. His brother's locked up, but he found out we are, too, so he wants to bail us out."

"I thought he was your ex," Emily said. "What does he need to do you any favors for?"

"He _is_ ," Bella clarified. "I swear. But I guess he misses me or something. I don't know, but he can bail us out and I really think we should take it."

Leah shook her head. "I don't think I'm gonna trust that shit."

"Why?" Bella asked.

"I feel genetically inclined to not trust anything a white man promises me."

"Oh my God," Emily sighed deeply.

Kim looked up at Leah with red eyes. "Not now, Lee." Then she turned to Bella. "How soon can he get us out?"

Bella didn't exactly know how soon, but she knew Edward was prompt. He always came through on time. She hated him with every fiber of her being, but she could always count on that timely part of him.

"As soon as possible," she replied.

Kim bit her bottom lip but didn't say anything.

Even though Bella was the queen of empty promises, she knew that this would work out. She placed a hand on Kim's thigh and glanced over at everybody.

"We'll be okay," she assured them. "I promise."

* * *

The sun was bright as the girls exited the jail later that day. The first thing Bella saw was Edward, and while she was disgusted at first sight, she was grateful that he had happened to be in the right place at the right time. Jasper, his older brother, met up with their friends, who stood between Edward and a couple of ostentatious cars.

"Thank you," Kim told Edward. "We owe you big time."

Edward, wearing douchebag sunglasses, smiled at them with pearly white teeth. "Don't worry about it," he said. Then he stuck out his hand. "I'm Edward."

Kim shook his hand and introduced herself, and then Emily did the same. Leah, not buying any of it, stayed quiet behind her cousin.

Bella reluctantly gave Edward a hug—mostly because he expected it. While they embraced, he whispered, "What's with the last girl?"

"She's complicated."

They let go, and Bella stood with her hands on her hips. "So what's next?" she asked. "Are you gonna take us back to our motel or what?"

"Abrasive," he remarked.

She pouted her lips and tilted her head a little bit. "I'm a little more complicated than you remember me."

"I like it."

"Hmm."

"I actually thought you girls could get your stuff and then come chill with us. We've got a big house right in Venice. We've got booze."

"I never wanna drink again," Kim muttered.

"It's okay," Edward said to her. "We've got pool, too."

"Let's go, then," Bella said, making her way to one of the cars, a clean, white convertible. Edward got into the driver's seat, and she got into the passenger seat. Kim and Emily followed, climbing into the backseat, and Leah awkwardly hung behind.

Bella gave her look. _Please_ , she mouthed.

Leah hesitantly got into the backseat behind Bella, trusting her word again and hoping it wouldn't be another mistake.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Up next: a lot._

 _Thanks,_

 _HS_


	30. XXX

**_A/N:_** _Anything you recognize is not mine. Here's chapter 30. It features... a mixture of feelings. Warning: some physical violence/threatening language._

 _Enjoy._

 **XXX.**

 _we don't stick together 'cause we put our love first_

* * *

The rental beach house that Edward shared with his brother and friends was more of a mansion. Easily the biggest house any of them had been in—even bigger than Kim's. Edward lived a life of opulence no matter where he went; Bella was used to it, but it took the other girls some adjustment over a couple of days.

Emily and Leah were watching Kim and a few other guys around their age play pool as they relaxed on a large patio underneath an umbrella. Sipping beer and enjoying the view of the beach, things should have been perfect. They were supposed to be. They had gotten away with their crimes mostly unscathed. They were living a life of luxury in a house way nicer than the motel they had been in. They had been saved, but something wasn't right.

"What are you thinking about?" Emily asked Leah.

"Honestly," Leah began, "I'm just thinking about how much I hate white boys."

Emily smiled. "Yeah, they're corny, aren't they?"

"Never cornier. They love themselves some Kim, though." She nodded over in Kim's direction, and all the boys were just flocking over her. It was like high school all over again. Maybe that was why Leah was so annoyed now.

"That's funny."

"I know," Leah agreed. "I wonder if they know how much she probably craves pussy."

"You don't know that for sure. Isn't she still with Jared?"

"Technically. I mean, it's long-distance, but I guess I don't really know much. They've broken up and made up too many times to count."

"At least she seems to be having fun again. She was really freaking out back in that jail cell."

Leah rolled her eyes. "Don't remind me. She is too fragile."

"I think she's tough. She's gotta be."

"I guess so."

* * *

Bella was physically somewhere on the third floor of the mansion with Edward, but she was mentally up in the clouds. It hadn't taken them that long to get high off weed and each other's bodies. And they hadn't done much yet, but he was practically begging her. She laid on her back, halfway off the bed, and he kneeled between her open thighs.

"C'mon, baby," he said, kissing her on the neck. "Give me something."

She giggled. "There are too many people in the house."

"Fuck 'em. I can kick them all out."

"I know you can."

He ran his hands down her bare torso, trying to get into her shorts. She placed her hands over his and looked him in the eyes. "Not now."

Ignoring her, he started to kiss her again, and then there was a knock on the door. Someone was calling for Edward. Bella started to untangle herself from him, but he tried to get her to stay, holding her down.

"I really gotta go," she whispered. Then she got up and picked up her tank top from the floor. She hastily pulled the top on, ignoring the concept of a bra, and tossed her disheveled hair.

"So you're just gonna be like that?" he asked, staring up at her.

"I didn't say no. I said _not now._ "

She pulled the door open and left the bedroom, but not without looking over her shoulder to smile suggestively at him.

Bella went downstairs to the patio, looking for Kim, and quickly found her. She was no longer playing pool with the guys; she was talking with one of them instead.

"Excuse me," Bella said, politely interrupting the conversation. She looked to Kim. "Can you talk for a minute."

"I'll be right back," Kim said to the guy as Bella pulled her away, locking fingers with her.

Bella playfully pulled Kim to the front door of the house. Before they could leave, Kim stopped. "Where are we going?" she asked.

Bella smiled and gave her hand a squeeze. "Don't worry about it."

* * *

They ended up sight-seeing at the boardwalk. Bella had realized that between the music festival and the parties and the arrest, they had never really gotten to experience a lot of Venice Beach's trademark.

"You said you wanted to see it all," Bella reminded Kim, "so we should see it all."

Holding hands the entire time, the girls saw everything and then some. The sky was dark and the neon lights shone brightly when they ended up at a tattoo shop. It was Kim's idea.

Bella was still trying to pick out what kind of tattoo she wanted as Kim had already started to get hers. It wasn't anything too crazy (like the angel wings on her back, for example); it was an outline of a diamond, right on the inside of her left wrist.

As Kim prepared for and started the tattoo process, the artist used almost all of his effort to flirt with her. He ended up trying to guess her ethnicity, and Kim started to wonder where the hell Bella was to save her.

"You from around here?" the tattoo artist asked. He was white-passing, but he had a strong Spanish accent.

"The coast, yeah."

"So you're Mexican."

"Mm-mm."

"Puerto Rican?"

"Nope."

"Brazilian, then."

"What makes you think that?"

"You got that nice, wavy hair."

"Funny. Try again."

"This might be a wild guess," he began, "but are you mixed?"

"Mixed with that?"

"White mama, black father."

"I'm not mixed, then."

"Just what I thought. Are you Filipino, then? 'Cause I used to date a girl who was half-Filipino, half-white. She kinda looked like you."

"I'm not that, either."

"Polynesian?"

"Not even close."

"You are definitely Italian, then."

"Try again." This was some of the most fun Kim had ever had in her life.

"Mediterranean. I'm thinking Greek with that complexion you've got going on."

"No."

"Damn. Well, you're just about done here. You took the pain pretty well. Is this your first tattoo?"

"No," she replied, "but—"

"Okay," Bella said, walking over to Kim and her tattoo artist, "so I still haven't decided yet—oh." She stopped dead in her tracks. "You're done."

The artist was putting plastic over the tattoo now. Kim nodded at Bella. "Yeah, pretty much."

"What'd you get?"

"A cute little diamond outline."

"Can I get the same thing?" Bella asked the artist.

"You can get whatever you'd like," he said smoothly.

Bella and Kim looked at each other and giggled.

When he finished with Kim, she got up and Bella took her place in the chair. As he began the procedure, he said, "Did you know I can guess a lady's zodiac sign just by looking at her?"

"Oh, really, now?"

"Yeah."

"What do you see in me?" she asked.

"I'd say you're an earth sign."

"You're right. Go on."

"You're a Capricorn, for sure."

Bella laughed. "I'm a Virgo."

"They're not that far apart," he said. "That was my second guess."

Within a matter of time, Bella and Kim left the shop matching tattoos on their left wrists. They returned to the boardwalk even giddier as they had arrived, smiling at each other as if they had a secret. It wasn't very secretive, but it was _theirs._

* * *

Upon Bella and Kim's return to the house, Leah and Emily pounced on Kim. It shouldn't have been a huge deal, but somehow, it was.

" _God_ , we were so worried about you," Leah told Kim.

"Well, I'm okay now, Mom," Kim said sharply. "So get off my back."

Leah backed off. "Fine, then," she said. "It's whatever."

Kim nodded, clearly annoyed, and returned to playing pool with the boys.

In another room, Edward pounced on Bella, and it made her wish she had never returned to the house. She let him freak out about leaving for hours like that, though, because she was positive that if she fought back, he would pull the bail card out on her. It was like he had set all this up to control her again.

So she stayed quiet and high, sitting on his lap as he smoked weed with some corny white boys. She crossed her legs and slightly turned to him, playing in his hair with her fingers. He ignored her for now, and they were just like they used to be, but somehow worse.

Kim eventually got tired of playing pool and tried to find Bella. She hadn't gotten far when she walked past the smoky room and caught a glance of Bella and Edward making out. Bella was nearly naked. Kim knew she shouldn't get upset, but the feeling was sinking way, way down into her stomach. She also knew she shouldn't have looked, but she couldn't look away. What did Bella see in him? Why did he continue to matter to her when he had hurt her so many times before?

Leah and Emily entertained themselves in the kitchen with a pack of playing cards and more beer, just like the old days, except with alcohol. Kim found them and pulled up a chair at the edge of the table. Where they were was one of the peaceful parts of the house that didn't include people having sex. The real party was downstairs where Bella and Edward were. The girls could feel the bass from under them.

"Hey, girlie," Emily greeted Kim as if she hadn't bitched her and Leah out forty-five minutes ago.

"Where'd you get the beer?" Kim asked immediately.

"Fridge."

Kim got a cold bottle of Budweiser and sat down at the table again. Leah didn't ask why Kim finally decided to join her real friends. Leah didn't say anything at all because she didn't have to.

After taking a long chug, Kim sighed. "I'm done," she announced. "Done with this trip, done with Bella, done with everything."

"Got any threes?" Emily asked Leah.

"Go fish."

"You suck."

"I said I'm done," Kim reiterated.

"Aren't we all," Leah said.

"I mean, Bella's downstairs basically having sex with her annoying boyfriend, the music sucks, and all the guys here think they can say the 'N' word."

"And it's taken you this long to figure it all out?" Leah asked, avoiding eye contact.

"Why didn't you say anything before?"

"You weren't around to hear any of it."

Kim bit the inside of her cheek. "We should leave," she suggested.

Leah still refused to look at her. "That's bold of you," she said bleakly.

"I mean it. We've got money to get back," Kim elaborated. "Or we will since it won't be that hard to find. Earlier when I was trying to find the bathroom, I found a bedroom full of guns and cash instead. Straight up."

"Then go get Bella," Leah said. "I'll get the money."

"Bella doesn't want to talk to me," Kim admitted. "She's too busy getting fingered by a guy who probably has Cheeto powder under his nails."

Leah put her cards down and looked up at Kim. "That's gross. Go get the money."

Emily set her cards down. "Are we for real about to leave?" she asked Leah.

"I'm tired," Leah replied. "I think it's about damn time to go home."

* * *

Leah went downstairs to the smoke-filled room, where Bella was doing some wasted white girl subset of dancing that involved being half-naked and bent over. It looked more like clothed intercourse, but Leah, having a different priority, wasn't going to say anything regarding that.

"Let's go, Bella," she said over the music.

Bella continued dancing, Edward was having a ball, and Leah had no time for whatever the fuck this was.

"Girl, come _on_ ," Leah said, her voice even louder as she pulled Bella by the arm. "We need to go."

The drunk girl stood up straight and shoved Leah away. "Chill the fuck out!" she yelled.

Leah tried to remain patient. "We're going home right now."

Bella pushed Leah again. "Fuck off."

"Touch me again," Leah warned. "I fucking dare you."

"What, are you gonna hit me?" Bella challenged. "C'mon."

Leah pursed her lips and shook her head. "Don't even try it, bitch."

"So you're gonna call me a bitch, right?" Bella shouted, getting closer to Leah. "But you won't hit me? C'mon, Lee, I'm begging you to hit me."

"And if I hit you, then what? You're gonna go crying to the guy whose dick you've had in your mouth the entire time we've been here?"

" _Hit me_ , Leah. Please hit me. Show me how much of a big, bad savage you are."

Leah swung so fast that her fist would have shattered Bella's jaw, but she was pulled back at the waist by some guy before the impact could be made. Bella was pulled back in the other direction. Both girls tried to get to each other, and the room was a lot louder all of a sudden.

"I fucking hate you, Bella," Leah yelled. "You've gotten the rest of us into so much shit just to get here."

"I'm the reason why any of us even made it here," Bella screamed. "Don't you fucking forget it."

"You're the reason why we got _arrested_."

"Oh, please!"

"I just hope you know the rest of us are leaving your sorry ass."

"Then leave." Bella waved her hand in Leah's direction. "Good fucking riddance."

Leah pulled herself out of the stranger's grip. Clenching her jaw, she left the room, but now without saying one last thing.

"You know what, Bella? Fuck you."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I'll update Wednesday. (Also, I know people are reading this story - where the reviews at tho). And happy 10th birthday, Twilight! I'm getting a little emotional, don't mind me. If any of you read that reimagined book that Stephenie Meyer put out, let me know if it's good._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	31. XXXI

_**A/N:** I now present chapter 31 of Static. The story's about 90 days old now (chapter 1 just expired in my documents). These fics grow up so fast. Warning: this chapter contains heavy violence and a little more angst than usual._

 **XXXI.**

 _loving you was really hard_

* * *

"You know what, Bella? Fuck you."

Leah turned around, and as she got further away from Bella, the blurry image of the former got smaller and smaller. Bella stared at her ex-friend and ex-accomplice, thinking she'd come back, but she ultimately didn't. The tan skin, black hair, and denim shorts were nothing but what used to be. Comfort used to be a familiar thing for Bella.

Bella's world spun slowly around her as she realized what she had done. She wanted to follow Leah now that she knew she wasn't coming back, but she couldn't follow a vision. It was far too late. Choking back tears, she took the last swig of her can of beer and set it down on a table beside her. Then she turned to the opposite of comfort.

Edward leaned against the door frame, in Bella's immediate vision. His face was lit up like she was his favorite person in the entire world. He was only really happy to see her when he was intoxicated.

"Hey, babe," he greeted her. "Why the long face?"

 _Oh, fuck you._

Bella couldn't find anything good to say in return. All she could do was stare at Edward with such hatred, all because it was _his_ fault everything that she'd had with Leah had gone to shit. Leah wasn't an easy person to get along with in the first place, and now everything was broken. It had never hurt Bella before, not being Leah's favorite, but when she was used to being close to her for a little while and all of that suddenly came to an end, she was thrown off kilter. Now it kind of hurt. It wouldn't hurt tomorrow, though, and that was why she just looked at Edward and tilted her head, signaling for them to get away for a bit, even if it wasn't what she truly wanted. All she wanted was to not embarrass herself even more around all these people.

And even though she hated Edward, and he hated her, their hatred could be altered because nothing would hurt tomorrow.

He followed her out of the mansion, and they made their way down the street.

* * *

"Get the fuck away from me, Edward."

As Bella paced through the motel room, the room that she used to occupy with her girls, a storm brewed inside her. Edward had the same storm in him now, only lightning was going to strike sooner and they both knew it. Edward and Bella were one and the same: when things were bad, they were ungodly; when things were good, they were pure magic.

Edward couldn't get away, though. He'd followed Bella to her old, dark, dingy motel room after she had clearly told him _not_ to. Somewhere on the way, she had decided she didn't want to be around him anymore. Now she wanted to get the rest of her things, catch up with her girls, and go home. But he didn't listen since both of them had their alcohol goggles on. What she had said meant anything to him.

When she realized the motel room was empty except for her items, her world fell apart.

She was too late, and she was perfectly alone with Edward.

"I am so goddamn _sick_ of you!" he yelled, buzzed and stupid and still trailing behind her. "All this time and money and effort, wasted. It's all gone because you want to go home all of a sudden."

Bella clumsily started picking her scattered clothes up from one of the beds and packing them into her backpack, which had also been left behind. Just days prior to now, right after she'd been bailed out, she had been excitedly deciding on what to wear to a party with her girls, despite what they'd been through. At the time, Edward's beach house had sounded like fun. As soon as night had fallen, though, everything else had followed.

 _The party's over,_ she thought. _It's been over the second I ended up in jail. It's time to take my underage ass home._

"I fucking hate you," she said simply. Her back was still turned to Edward, which was one of the most dangerous positions she could be in. "You're full of shit, you know that?" she asked like she was talking to her orange backpack, the old backpack she'd been using since her freshman year of high school. "I've been hurt too many times for you to—"

He grabbed her left arm and forcefully turned her around to look at him. He held her arm in an iron grip, and she stared up at him in both awe and terror. His once beautiful green eyes were watery and his mouth smelled like death.

" _You've_ been hurt?" he asked. "I'll show you some fucking pain."

And then with nearly superhuman force, he shoved her up against the wall adjacent to the bed. Her head slammed into the paint, and all she saw was red. She was too angry to be taken down; it would be the last thing she did. She tried to put up a fight, tried to kick him where it would really hurt, but he just held her tighter. He placed his right forearm over her chest and pinned one of his legs against one of hers. If she kept kicking, she would slip and fall. Her poor self-defense skills could never do anything offensive to him.

" _You've_ been hurt," he continued, "because of _me_?"

Then he lifted his right hand, switching so his left arm restrained her.

And he slapped her right across the face.

If she were to say it felt like a kiss, then she would have been lying. If kisses were supposed to make the receiver's teeth feel weak, then she'd never been kissed.

Bella held the tears back. Crying over Edward Cullen used to be her favorite past time, but not anymore.

Shocked by his own actions, Edward loosened up a little, so Bella thought it was all over. Or maybe her lack of tears made him want to beat her more since he was just that kind of guy she had gotten lucky enough to have. He pulled his fist back and launched it like a fucking rocket. Instinctively, she slid over, her face just a few centimeters away from the collision between his fist and the drywall. The noise was astonishing. She'd never forget that noise. He pulled his fist away from the wall and didn't take the time to examine the damage he'd done; he was only on to more damage.

"You missed," she said, her voice nasty and spiteful. "You fucking missed because you're a coward. You could never punch me like a man."

"You stupid fucking bitch," he said, still holding her against the wall, his voice quiet.

Bella Swan wasn't really an angry person by nature; she'd always been better than that. She had been a coward from the day she was born. But there was something—or, perhaps, a lot of things—about Edward Cullen that made her angry and ugly and mindless every once in a while. He occasionally made her forget who she was, whether it was fueled by lust or anger. Things were always passionate, nonetheless. They would be boring if they weren't passionate.

Tonight (or this morning), Bella ran on wild, angry fumes. That storm was taking over completely now, and it was all lightning. The impact between his fist and the wall had been total thunder.

"You're pathetic," she went on. "You're the biggest piece of shit. Fuck you." Then she spat. Warm, angry saliva with some phlegm, too, flew into Edward's face, quicker than any apology she could make, but not as quick or as precise as his fist this time. He didn't hit the wall again; his target was all flesh and cartilage and bone and blood. Fist to cheek, cheek to nose, head to wall.

"Actually," he replied, calm as ever, as if nothing even happened, "fuck you."

If she were to say it felt like true love, then she would be lying. If true love was supposed to feel like having all the spirit knocked out of her, then she'd never been in love.

He finally released her from the wall, and her knees gave out. She collapsed, her eyes closed, sirens in her head, but some actually very faint in the distance, too. Either to shut down the party they had left at the mansion or to shut down the little party they were now having of their own, they could both hear sirens.

Or at least Edward could. Bella was out, cold.

She wouldn't move, and Edward wasn't a patient guy, so he quickly went to her level, onto his knees. Head leaning against the wall, hot blood gushing from her nose, cheeks red... She wasn't a pretty sight. Her mouth hung slightly open, too, and when she continued to not move, he realized he had two options: leave her or panic.

He put his hands to her shoulders and shook her roughly. "Come on, Bella," he said, his voice shaky and sullen. "I know you can hear me."

Nothing.

"Wake up. Wake _up._ "

 _There's no fucking way._

He sat there for a few minutes, feeling sorry and sorry _and sorry_ for the first time in his life. Minutes had gone before he got up to do something.

He made his way to the dark bathroom and retrieved a wash rag. Silent and sure to not see his reflection in the mirror, he turned the faucet on and waited until the water ran ice cold. Putting the cloth underneath the faucet and wringing it out, his skin cooled down a little, only to heat back up at the reminder of what he'd just done.

He went back to the unconscious girl in the room and kneeled beside her again, quickly wiping the blood from her face. _I care_ , he thought. _I care enough._

As he was just finishing, Bella's eyes slowly opened and she groaned softly.

"Bella," Edward whispered.

"What the hell just happened?" Her eyes were wide, adjusting to the darkness.

"You passed out momentarily," he told her. "You drank too much at the house, and then you fell and hit your head."

"How long was I out?"

"Only a few minutes."

"Oh, okay."

They were silent as they stared at each other. His eyes were as moist as ever; hers were jaded and far away.

"I'm tired," she said. "Will you go to sleep with me?"

"We can't go to sleep," he answered. "You might have a concussion."

She frowned but said nothing.

He didn't have anything good to say besides _I'm sorry_ , but for as long as he would know her from this point onward, he would always be sorry. He was still tired of being mad, but he was finally feeling sorry for the first time in his entire life and he would never be able to shake it. That was a given.

Bella looked around the empty motel room and again realized that her girls were gone. Leah and Emily and Kim had all left her because she had been selfish. They had simply gotten the rest of their bags and departed for La Push without hesitation. Bella envied them—especially Leah—over that; they were so good at going back to reality, but Bella couldn't let hyperreality go. The very worst aspect of it was sitting right in front of her, after all.

"Let's go out," said the figment of her hyperreality, holding her hands in his. _Let's make you forget._

"What's that smell?" she asked.

"What smell?"

"It smells like blood."

"Blood doesn't have a smell," he disagreed.

She shook her head, which was still cloudy. "It smells like pennies. And salt."

"Let's get you a little cleaned up," he said, dropping the discussion. "We're going out."

* * *

Without looking in the mirror before leaving, Bella and Edward headed off and ended up at a diner not off far from the boardwalk. Dimly lit and mostly empty, it was the perfect place to quietly recharge. With her head in her hands, Bella wasn't fully awake, but no longer unconscious. Edward blamed her current state on the alcohol. The coffee he ordered for her did nothing to change her grogginess.

As she sipped the hot, black coffee, she couldn't focus on the man in front of her, eating French fries like nothing was wrong. What was he? What were they? How did they even get here? And where would they go? She couldn't decode any of this. All she knew was that they'd been arguing, and then everything had gone black. Nothing with him made sense, so she didn't focus on him anymore. She turned to look out the window next to her.

Outside, the world was alive and warm. People—people just like Edward and his girl and Bella and her girls prior to tonight, prior to the blowups and breakdowns—walked around, awake and laughing, even as it was three in the morning. Venice Beach was a vibrant, neon, buzzing dreamland. For Bella, being tired through it all was sobering. Why did she ever let herself fall into this place? She turned back to Edward and saw that he was the reason. She hated the sight of him. With the booze goggles slowly fading away, she began to see him for what he really was: a thief, a liar, and one of the worst things that ever happened to her.

He hadn't always been a piece of shit, though. For three entire summers, she had loved him, and he had loved her. They'd fallen in love with each other over those summers, and even when they had been around other people at their schools in the autumns and winters and springs that had gone by, they had never stopped loving each other. That was what had made them connect so easily after so much time apart.

 _We could go back to Seattle_ , Bella thought. They could go back, just like they had the second summer. Loving him back then, though, had been difficult. For most people, it had to have been hard to fall in love and have sex at the raw age of fifteen only to go back to their real home the next afternoon, silent and twisted. Loving Edward Cullen had never been particularly easy, but back then, it had been worth the fight. It had been worth the constant feeling of inadequacy and all the excuses. She had made excuse after excuse for him and the magnitude of their love.

It just didn't make any sense now.

Seattle was beautiful, though, and that was where Edward's boarding school friends from Oregon (along with Edward's true personality) had come out to play. In Seattle, Edward had liked to drive fast and spoil Bella and live like he had and hadn't been seventeen. Seattle was hardly real anymore.

 _We could go back to Portland_ , Bella also thought. _They don't know who we are when we're there._

Loving Edward in Portland that third summer had been significantly easier. With just the two of them and no boarding school friends in sight, they had been able to focus on real love, on what they liked and wanted and needed from each other. He had taken her to art houses, to see something beautiful that wasn't himself. Portland had also consisted of the most love, and Bella had discovered that sex wasn't all that bad, once she got some practice. Portland had made them endless, though. She'd never thought of herself as the kind of person who could invest so much energy and love and adoration into just one person, but Edward had expanded that. Their love was bottomless.

Or it had been.

Bella had never made any promises to not love him, but as she stared at him, she knew the love had been long gone. Finding each other in Venice was less of a blessing and more of a curse.

* * *

Upon flicking on the light switch in the dim motel bathroom and catching her reflection in the mirror, Bella gasped. Swollen lips, inflamed cheeks, and traces of blood near her nose all stared back at her. Her hair was a mess, matted in some areas with more blood. It stung when she touched the back of her head.

She didn't even recognize herself.

All she saw was a victim.

She spent a long time in the bathroom before coming out again. Sitting on the cold edge of the toilet, avoiding the mirror, she wondered why Edward never checked in on her, but it all made sense when she reemerged into the motel room.

He was gone. All that remained were her strewn-out clothes and crumpled up dollar bills. All that hung in the air was her shame and his cowardice. She was practically choking on it.

She went back to the bathroom and used a wash rag to wipe away the rest of the blood from her face. He had been so lazy, dressing her up like his little doll only to do a half-ass job in the end. If he was going to hide his blatant disrespect, he should have at least tried harder. He had loved to spoil her, but he didn't know how to cover up his own crimes. His Ivy League education didn't mean anything if he was a fucking idiot, which he was. He was definitely a villain, but he was a stupid one.

It was time to go home and return to her brain. She should have never left without it.

She changed clothes, and after making sure there was nothing of hers left in the motel room, she followed the neon lights just outside the door.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I'll update Monday._

 _Thanks,_

 _HS_


	32. XXXII

_**A/N:** I own no part of Twilight. Now I present chapter 32. This one is pretty subdued, but it reflects upon itself. You'll see. Enjoy._

 **XXXII.**

 _in the land of gods and monsters_  
 _i was an angel_  
 _living in the garden of evil_

* * *

"Hey, Em," Bella sighed into her cell phone. "It's Bella, if you never put me in your contacts. If you guys are around Venice still, call me back. I…" She felt herself shaking. It was even worse in her voice. "I need to come home with you guys. So if you're around, call back and maybe we can meet up or something. Please. I know I fucked up, but I really—"

 _Beep._

Bella's already-beaten face crumpled up, and she was glad she wasn't anywhere near a mirror. She didn't want to see that she looked as bad as she felt. She hung up the phone, put it back into her backpack, and then carefully placed the backpack on her lap.

She was at a bus station in Venice, but she had hours to go until she could hop on the earliest bus to San Francisco. It would be a long trip back to Forks. Even though she knew she was a shitty person and friend overall, she didn't want to go back alone.

She was finally tired again, but she wouldn't fall asleep. Underneath the bright lights, she felt too awake. Too vibrant. Did Venice even have a light switch? It needed one.

Bella closed her eyes for ten seconds before she could feel the stares. She already knew it. There were men gazing at her, looking her up and down, taking her apart piece by piece. Nothing and nobody slept here. Neither would she.

She stood up and lodged the backpack on her left shoulder as she continued walking. She didn't care where she was going, just as long as it was away.

* * *

About twenty-four hours later, Leah and her girls on a bus were somewhere in Northern California. The coloring of the area was more subdued, lacking all the neon lights. Leah had never been more thankful for the paleness of reality.

Leah tried to sleep, but as Kim sat next to her, her thigh shook. It was distracting.

"Kim, are you okay?" Leah asked.

"I feel so bad," Kim blurted out. "We messed up."

"How? We're on the way home."

"We _left_ Bella."

Leah snorted. "She left herself, and, anyway, it was your idea to leave."

"I didn't wanna go without her, Lee, and you know that."

"Well, that's not what you implied when you were upset about her having a dick in her mouth," Leah said sharply. "And we're already out here. It's not like we can just go back."

"We can always go back," Kim assured Leah. "I just worry about her. Her boyfriend or ex-boyfriend or whoever the hell he is to her… he's not good for her."

"Yeah, but his dick was."

"Lee, could you, like, not be an asshole for once?"

Leah calmed down a little bit. "Listen," she began. "Bella _wanted_ to stay with her boyfriend. Don't even worry about it. You're just putting on way more stress than you need. She'll be okay."

"But what if she won't be okay?" Kim demanded. "Then what?"

"Then it was nice knowing her for the time being."

Kim sighed. "God, Lee, you've just got manners for days, don't you?"

Leah looked up and smiled. "I just can't believe this is still a surprise to you."

* * *

The girls had just crossed the California-Oregon border when their bus ride had ended. They were about to buy passes for another bus, one to Portland, when Kim spoke up.

"We need to go back for Bella," she said definitively. Her voice was sure, but her body language wasn't. With her hands stuffed into the pocket of one of her old cheer sweatshirts and her eyes low, Leah didn't know whether or not to take her seriously.

"Who's _we_?" Leah replied.

Kim looked to Emily. "Both of us," she said.

"So you guys did some conspiring while I was asleep or something?" Leah asked. "There's no way you're going back for her."

"We have to," Emily said. "We owe it to her."

Leah's eyebrows furrowed as she folded her arms across her chest. "For what? Getting us arrested?"

"We brought her here," Emily explained. "We can't just leave her behind like that. It's fucked up."

"No, you know actually what's fucked up?" Leah asked. "You guys. I don't know why you're suddenly friends with her. She's never really fucked with us, and both of you know it. She doesn't care about us. If she did, she would have gone with us when I asked her to."

"She's your friend, too," Kim said. "I don't get how you can just talk about her like that."

"Kim, I don't fucking _know_ her. None of us do. And even if you go back for her, what are the odds of you finding her? She's probably laying in some ditch right now."

"And you wouldn't care, right?" Kim challenged. "Because you don't fucking _know_ her?"

" _Precisely._ " The single word came out like a dagger.

Usually when Kim was judging Leah's unbearable attitude and matching pride, she addressed it sarcastically, in a way that made Leah sound endearing.

This was the first time Kim ever hated Leah.

"Don't you ever get tired of being so selfish?" Kim asked.

Leah didn't respond. Instead, she turned and bought a ticket to Portland for one.

* * *

Bella stuffed the crumpled twenty dollar bills into her backpack as she exited the man's car. He was an older man, about fifty years old, and Bella promised herself she would never sleep with somebody for money again. The only thing she wanted to do more than go home was to die.

She walked without making a sound as the man pulled out of the alleyway. He could have at least given her a ride to the nearest bus stop, which was only miles away from here. She was somewhere in Sacramento. All she had to do was get to Oregon and she'd be okay. She thought about calling somebody, but then she realized she had no friends and Charlie thought she was in Seaside.

 _I fucked up so bad._

She reached the nearest bus stop a couple of hours later, and then she fell asleep on a bench. It was freezing cold, but she tried to get used to it. If she could survive the cold, then she could survive anything. She didn't need anybody but herself. That was what mattered, and it was what she was going to keep telling herself even though she didn't believe it.

Bella woke up at the crack of dawn the next morning and was about to buy a bus pass to the next furthest city up when a bus arrived and people poured out of it. She wouldn't have cared about that bus or its occupants if she hadn't spotted Kim and Emily. At the sighting, Bella was a firm believer in guardian angels.

Bella ran to them and the collision was so strong that Kim almost got knocked over. Bella wrapped the other two girls in her arms and didn't want to let go. She breathed them in deeply—they all smelled horrible—but she didn't care. They were real and they were here and she wasn't alone. Bella wasn't the type of person to ever have many friends, but she loved these girls more than anything now. They were all she knew.

She finally let go and then asked, "Is Leah in the bathroom or something?"

Emily shook her head. "She didn't wanna come."

Bella's smile faded. "Then where is she?"

"Vancouver, maybe," Kim said. "She has to be in Washington, for sure, though."

Bella tried not to be upset, but something deep down— _way_ deep down—hurt at the thought of Leah being out there by herself. And even though Bella knew it was all her fault, she still felt bad. She didn't like apologizing to anybody, but she would apologize to Leah seven million times. She couldn't stand to be hated by her again, even if she deserved it. Leah was special to Bella. Even though she was a hard-ass and a jerk-and-a-half, Bella didn't want to _not_ be around her. Bella, the queen of burned bridges, could put her pride aside and admit this.

She wished that wherever Leah was, she could do the same.

* * *

As the cold Vancouver wind blew in her face, Leah decided she hated the real world and would take the badlands back any fucking day.

Having traveled alone for a little while now, all she knew was the unknown. She ached for familiarity. She yearned for a familiar face or voice. Anything. She was almost home—she could feel Puget Sound on her tongue at this point—but she didn't want to do this anymore. She didn't want to fight. She was the kind of person who could argue forever, like how she had argued herself out of camaraderie with Bella and something a bit deeper with Kim, but she didn't have the energy anymore. She couldn't voluntarily put her pride away to try to be better; her pride had merely been weathered away with everything else. It was floating around in the wind.

She didn't know if she wanted it back.

Leah wanted to sleep to kill some time between now and the next bus, but she had an entire night to get through, and she couldn't see herself falling asleep. She didn't want to get assaulted. People around here were fucking nuts. She could get raped, shot, and murdered tonight, and her body wouldn't be found for weeks. She didn't want to leave the world like this.

She retreated to a payphone. Her fingers were frozen as she pushed the buttons that completed Emily's cell phone number. It had been the same number for years. She didn't want it to change.

"Hey, Em," Leah sighed. "It's Lee. I'm in Vancouver. When you guys get up here, could you… Could you maybe let me know? I can't do this alone. I know I fucked up, and I know you're probably still mad at me, but please. Just… just get back to me. It's best for us to—"

 _Beep._

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _Up next: a throwback to one of our favorite doomed couples (no, not Bella x Edward)._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	33. XXXIII

_**A/N:** I own no part of Twilight. At all. Ever. So, anyways, here is chapter 33 of Static. It's already my longest story already. It is very weird. I keep referencing back to old chapters for various reasons, but it's getting harder and harder to do. Whatever. This chapter is a short one, and pretty reflective. I originally planned this chapter way differently, but I thought I'd do Leah some justice. We're beginning to move out of this Venice arc and onto a new one. _

_Enjoy._

 **XXXIII.**

 _every second, every minute_  
 _man, i swear that she can get it_

* * *

Leah got lucky enough to end up in Port Angeles but unlucky enough to run out of money in Port Angeles as well. She knew she had people who would help her out. She had resources all over the badlands, and it truly felt like home. She didn't even know why she'd ever left. What had she even been looking for?

Paul picked up the phone on the first ring. She hoped he would still like her even though she was sober. He wasn't into the dumb girls, was he? He had been so far away from her for so long that it was hard to tell.

"Hey," she said, her voice cracking. That was the second she wished she'd never called. "It's me, Le—"

"Leah," he said, instantly knowing something was up. _When did he ever start caring?_ "What's going on?"

"I'm in Port Angeles," she explained, "and I'm out of cash. Could you pick me up?"

Even though he was good at running away from her, he was better at returning.

* * *

Paul's old lemon of a pimp mobile pulled up to the bus terminal in Port Angeles that July evening, and it could have convinced Leah that she was truly in heaven. Shit like this just didn't happen in real life. Even though Paul was all sorts of bad, he was a savior to her now. He could be as bad as he wanted to be.

She got into the car and ran her hands along the cracked gray leather. She was finally able to breathe, despite the faint smell of cigarettes. She closed her eyes, took in a deep breath, and then exhaled slowly. Then she turned her head to look at him. It had been a long time since she had been in a car with him, and his profile was just as beautiful. He didn't look back; he was focused on driving. His eyes were red, straining against the dark road.

The sky was starting to get dark, too, and all he did was drive out to the coast—home. Leah remembered when he had felt like home to her. _Is there a way to go back?_ she thought. _Would you even care to remember?_

Then she realized he had to care.

He wouldn't have picked her up if he didn't.

All he did was drive her back to reality (or reality's evil twin), and she wondered how he was feeling. He was probably tired—tired of her calling him (sober or not), tired of not knowing what to do or where to go, tired of not putting his invincibility to good use—and she could see it in his eyes. Every now and then, the moonlight would bounce off his face, and she would see those bloodshot brown eyes. Did he regret picking her up?

"You're quiet," he observed, startling her and forcing her to snap out of her thoughts. "What's up?"

"I've just been thinking," she said solemnly, turning her gaze to the windshield.

"About?"

She shrugged. _All the feelings we've been hiding from each other. What we are. Where we've been. Where we'll go._ "A lot," she finally said. "You've been quiet, too, though. What gives?"

"I'm just tired," he told her. She tried to quickly move past the fact that she set him up to say something worthwhile, but he instead said the obvious. He just wasn't a deep guy, at least not when she wanted him to be. They functioned on completely different wavelengths. She needed to stop forgetting that.

They entered the reservation, and he slowed down the car as they got closer to their neighborhood.

"I was wondering," he began, turning his gaze to her, carefully switching between her and the road, "if you'd like to come back to my house with me."

She would follow him anywhere. It was corny and cliché and so very _not Leah_ , but it was the truth. She nodded and he drove down the street, past Embry's house.

"You don't live with Embry anymore?" she asked.

"I moved out. The government gave me my dad's house once he got locked up for good. I guess it pays being Indian sometimes."

She chuckled, the air gently blowing out of her nose. "Don't you ever get haunted by going back there?"

He smiled back. "I've sat down and had a beer with all those ghosts. They ain't even half bad."

* * *

It was when Paul opened the door to his house that Leah realized she had hardly been there. She didn't have specific childhood memories of it. They had always gone to Jacob's house or Embry's house or the park or the beach or anywhere but here. Paul had always run to her house from here in the middle of the night, and they had exchanged secrets. Since Prom, they had shared one hundred fifty-six secrets.

His house was just added on to the growing list of secrets, because this was Leah's first time being here in over a decade. She knew the storms that had occurred in this house. Some of the aftermaths in the walls revealed themselves. She knew that this very house had held (and to most people, bred) trouble, and it scared her. She had to realize that if he could get comfortable with his ghosts, she could do the same. But with her own ghosts? She wasn't too sure. She still had some apologizing to do.

He led her to his childhood bedroom that didn't hold childish things. It was basic, gray, lacking any color, lacking anything but the essentials: a bed, a box television, a nightstand, a lamp upon said nightstand, a dresser, a desk (for what? She didn't know), and a chair.

She sat down on the bed, and he sat down next to her. Before she could say anything, he turned to her and put his hand on her cheek. He kissed her. Really kissed her. He almost knocked her breath out with that kind of kiss, the kind of kiss only reserved for lovers. Committed lovers. He kissed her like she was his girlfriend and he hadn't spend the last week or so fucking around with other girls in the county. He kissed Leah like he actually wanted to have something with her, and something more than sex.

Her skin started to burn slowly just with his touch, and she brought her hands to his, just at her lap. She traced the familiar scar on the back of his hand with her thumb. He was real, but it didn't feel that way.

Then she froze, seeing as she was clearly not in reality. Her brain must have still been somewhere under the neon lights in Southern California.

She wasn't in high school anymore—she now knew the real world and the assholes who occupied it—but she didn't want to believe that Paul Lahote was kissing her right now, acting like he hadn't burned so many bridges between them. Had he truly forgotten how he had broken her heart over and over, by leaving and then coming back for a hot second only to leave again, and then to push her out into the cold at her nineteenth birthday? Had he truly forgotten that he had ignored her for months on end after that?

And did really he think his dick had enough power to make a fool out of her again?

No fucking way.

She loved him, but she wasn't stupid. That was where he had her unconditionally and irrevocably fucked up.

"Lee-Lee, what's wrong?" he asked.

She got a bad taste in her mouth hearing that childhood nickname, especially since he was using it only because he wanted to fuck her. He had a lot of nerve, and she wished he didn't even know it, but he did.

Her voice was gentle when she spoke. She couldn't treat Paul the same way she had treated Tom Anderson back in high school. Paul actually meant something to her, unlike that old douche bag.

"I don't want to do this right now," she said.

He didn't fight back. "Okay. Are you okay?"

She let his hands go and then started to stand up and pick up her backpack from the floor. Her voice remained soft. "I'm okay," she assured him.

"Then why are you leaving?"

"This isn't high school anymore, Paul," she said as she started heading to the front door.

He followed her. "Of course, it's not. What does that even mean?" he asked as she swung the door open.

She didn't look back. All she saw were the streetlights that illuminated the street. Her home was just a few houses down, past Emily's and past Quil's and just a little past Jacob's. She knew she'd reach reality at her own house—not in Paul's.

"Let me know when you want me for real," she told him.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Up next: some bridge burning (as per usual)._

 _Thanks,_

 _HS_


	34. XXXIV

**_A/N:_** _I own no part of Twilight. So I'm posting this chapter (34!) on Saturday (around midnight) as opposed to Friday. My bad. I wouldn't like there to be big breaks since I have a decided ending date, but if something happens, something happens. I'll try to think and write ahead, though. This chapter's a little strange._

 _Enjoy._

 **XXXIV.**

 _you know it used to be mad love_

* * *

Leah had been home for two days when Bella called her house.

She didn't recognize the number. "Hello?" Leah asked as she picked up the phone.

"Come down to the beach."

"Who is this?" She had a faint idea, but the voice was too deep. Too grisly.

"Just come down here."

She hung up. Maybe Emily or Kim was being held at gunpoint, and the idea worried Leah, so she nearly ran to First Beach.

She first spotted Bella in the parking lot. Just Bella. The lot was relatively empty. And quiet. Almost too quiet.

Bella stood with her arms crossed over her chest.

Leah slowed down as she realized she was alone. "Bella."

"Leah."

Bella looked rough. She had to have just gotten home. She seemed to have recovering bruises on her face and collarbone, and her cheeks were sallow. Had only a couple days on the road really hurt her that bad? Leah didn't care.

"What do you want?" Leah asked. "I've got lunch waiting for me at home."

"I'm here to finish what we've started," Bella said assertively.

Leah narrowed her eyes and cocked her head to the side. "Are you really sure you're in the right condition to be fighting somebody? You look like you need a burger."

"I tried to forgive you for leaving me like that in Venice," Bella continued, "but it's been really hard."

"Oh, _I_ left _you_?" Leah asked with wide eyes. "You fuckin' serious? 'Cause last time I checked, your drunk ass wanted to stay. Maybe if you didn't insist on being the stupid white girl all the time, you'd remember your own actions so I don't have to keep repeating them."

"But why did you do it?" Bella asked, ignoring her reasoning. "I thought we were friends."

"You must have me fucked up if you think we're still friends. I don't owe you shit. Especially a reason as to why I left your dumb ass. This is a waste of my goddamn time." She began to turn around.

"This isn't over, Leah."

Leah stopped and looked over her shoulder at the other girl. "Uh, yeah, it is. I just finished it."

"No, we're gonna end this right," Bella decided. "Two days from now. I'm calling it First Beach Fight Club."

Leah smirked. _You've got nerve._ "What time?"

"Whenever you'd like. It's your turf."

"Eight thirty."

"That works."

"Good. And should we have spectators?"

Bella smirked back. "Bring a crowd."

* * *

 _First Beach Fight Club_ was all that could ring in Leah's head as she headed home from the beach that afternoon. _Is that what dumb white girls come up with when they're bored?_

Even though Bella was white, Leah decided that she must have gotten some powerful dick while she had dated Jacob because the girl thought like a Quileute. She planned her fights. Made sure she ended her disputes. She even wanted an audience to observe the brawl. As much as Leah despised her, they thought in the exact same ways. And Emily had been right about Bella: she was as savage as they came; she wanted the masses to observe her work, meaning she didn't have an issue with scalping Leah in public if she possessed the capability. But she was methodical. Meticulous.

Bella Swan was fucking nuts. Everybody knew that, though.

Leah just hoped she had the right people on her side.

* * *

"Lee," Emily began, "can I be honest with you for a second?"

"I'd prefer if you were honest with me all the time."

"Why did you leave Bella in Venice like that?"

"Oh my _God,_ " Leah groaned. "Not this again."

They were in Leah's living room the next evening, twenty-four hours before fight night, waiting for Kim to finish making popcorn in the kitchen. About to put on _Selena_ , life in the badlands resumed. They were back to their old ways on the surface, but underneath, something was different. Terribly different.

"I still don't get it," Emily replied.

Leah rolled her eyes. "Okay, listen close. You, too, Kim, so I don't have to keep explaining myself. I tried to get Bella to come with us, but she was too preoccupied with her boyfriend. I really, _really_ tried to get her to leave, but she got all brave and started to call me a savage. We almost threw hands and then I was like, 'Fuck it' and left. That's literally it. Nothing else."

"Jesus," Emily sighed. "I can't believe it."

"Bella's really good at getting fucked up and fucking things up for the rest of us," Leah reminded her. "That's kind of her thing."

"No," Emily said bluntly. "I can't believe how fucking petty you are."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. I said you're petty as hell."

"What, so I'm _petty_ now for not wanting to deal with that bitch's bullshit? I'm petty for wanting to go home after being _arrested_? You've got a big vocabulary and all, but I don't think that's the right word to describe what I did."

Kim was entering the living room with a huge bowl of popcorn. She found Emily and Leah staring each other down.

Emily broke eye contact and then shrugged. "You're not a nice person," she told Leah. "What you did was really mean. The circumstances don't even matter."

"Don't be dumb," Leah said. "Bella doesn't deserve my kindness."

"But she deserves your cruelty, right?"

"Since when are you _her_ best fucking friend? Is _she_ your cousin now?"

"Leah, you're hardly human at this point!" Emily exclaimed. "You do all this heartless shit that's burned so many bridges, and you don't even feel bad. You never feel bad for anything you say or do, and you always think you're right. It's hard to be around you when you act like a self-righteous asshole all the time."

Before Leah could respond, she snapped her head towards Kim. "Why do you never have anything to say?" she demanded. "What are you so quiet about, Kim?"

"I'm waiting for you guys to be done," Kim replied, chomping on the popcorn. "I actually kinda wanna watch the movie. It's been a good week or so since I've seen it."

"Well, whose side are you on?" Emily asked. "Since you're been so observant."

Leah stared at Kim with desperate eyes.

"I mean, it's not like Em's wrong," Kim said.

Leah lost it. She stood up. "Wow. Okay. Awesome. Get the fuck out of my house. Both of you." She paced towards the door and held it open for them. Emily and Kim silently left the house. Another night in front of the television watching _Selena_ didn't mean that much to them, anyway.

"Good luck at your fight tomorrow," Emily bitterly called as she climbed into her car.

"I've got a whole fucking _crowd_ coming," Leah yelled from her front porch. "Don't even worry about it."

* * *

The beach parking lot was almost just as empty the next night. It was a Thursday in July. Nothing out of the ordinary, at least at first.

All the sharks had come swimming by eight thirty. Leah noticed Jared, Kim's Jared, in the audience. He was home from Seattle for the remainder of the summer—or until he got bored of Kim. They stood close with their arms wrapped around each other like nothing was wrong, like their long distance relationship hadn't fallen through the roof, and like she didn't secretly carry a torch for Bella.

Leah instantly knew why Kim and Bella were such good friends now.

They were as fake as they came.

At eight thirty on the dot, Leah went into the middle of the crowd, making them back up and give her some space. That was when she saw Bella on the other side, emerging from the brown faces around her. Bella's face looked a lot better, but it was still in the healing process. She had to be a klutz, though, so why would she want to fight Leah? They weren't exactly the same in size or strength. Then again, Bella had to be a crazy fighter.

As they stared each other down, trying to pick up on the other girl's body language, Leah bit the inside of her cheek. This was it. _But first..._

"No weapons," she declared.

Bella smiled and slowly, tentatively, pulled out something tucked in her left sneaker. The two bare razor blades shone brightly as they caught the sun's reflection.

"Anything else, ref?" Bella asked condescendingly. Her grin was an ill one; Leah wanted to smack it right off her face.

"Get your hands out of your pockets."

Bella gestured to her dark blue hoodie with raised eyebrows. Leah nodded in response. Bella carefully took whatever was in it out. It was a sock, but it looked heavy. It was a little padlock, like the ones attached to high school lockers.

 _A fucking lock in a sock_ , Leah thought. _She fights as dirty as she talks._

"Don't act like you forgot," Bella said. "It's your turn."

Nonchalantly, Leah removed the kitchen knife from her back pocket. It fell to the hot, black pavement with a prominent _clang._

The entire parking lot was quiet. Some people were prepared to record the fight on their cell phones, their thumbs hovering over the red buttons; others just watched intently, their eyes focused.

Bella decided to throw the first punch since it was probably the only one she was going to get. She popped Leah right in the cheek. From then on, the girls were throwing down in typical manner (hair-pulling, scratching, the usual) until police sirens went off as red and blue lights started flashing out of nowhere. The girls quickly broke up as the group dispersed, but they weren't quick enough.

And of course, it was Charlie Swan, the chief of the Forks police, who found them.

* * *

"I can't go out," Leah said bleakly into the telephone. "I'm grounded."

"Shit's wack," Emily replied. She and Leah had gotten over their anger; Kim's issues with Leah were a different story, though, since she, unlike Emily, had too much pride to say she was sorry. "Was your mom super pissed or what?"

"Yeah, but only because it was Bella. I think she's still trying to get with her dad, and if I'm beating up his kid, that's not really a good thing."

"True. She's not gonna get the dick if the owner of the dick is busy being worried about his kid being in the hospital."

"If you wanna put it that way, I guess, then sure. Now I gotta go clean the entire house. Ma's watching me like a hawk even when she's not home."

"That is so Auntie Sue of her."

"Gotta love it," Leah said sarcastically.

"I'll talk to you soon. Have fun cleaning. Oh, and Kim says she has clothes for you. They got mixed up with hers when we were coming back from Venice."

Leah rolled her eyes. "Tell Kim to keep bandaging her girlfriend's cuts. I don't want shit to do with either of them."

"Noted."

"Thanks."

Leah hung up and then groaned aloud. Even though she had fought Bella (sort of), there still wasn't any closure. But she wasn't going to worry about it. There was no use.

People like them just weren't meant to get along, and that should have been evident from the start.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Until Monday,_

 _HS_


	35. XXXV

_**A/N:** I own no part of Twilight. If you didn't read the previous chapter, go back and do that right now before reading this one. _

_And of course, enjoy._

 **XXXV.**

 _you say you're lonely_  
 _i say you'll think about it_

* * *

Charlie sadly shook his head as he hung his coat on the rack by the front door. "I just don't know what to do with ya, kid."

After she entered the house approximately thirty-five minutes after the fight had started, Bella made a beeline to the kitchen, in search of a package of frozen peas. She found one and placed it against her right cheekbone, where she had been hit the hardest. She winced and took a seat at the kitchen table.

"I needed to defend myself," she said weakly. In reality, she didn't know why she had fought Leah. She had wanted to end the dispute, but not like that. Bella wasn't good at fighting. The only thing she was good at was getting her ass kicked. She was also good at not thinking with her head.

"You're an adult," Charlie replied, taking a seat across from her at the table. "If you have a problem with somebody, you use your words to fix it. You don't show up at the beach with a padlock in a sock and razor blades. And since you're an adult, I should probably treat you like one with the law. That was first degree aggravated assault, Bells."

"I wasn't gonna kill her," she said bluntly. "We were just a couple kids fighting at the beach. It's not really that big of a deal."

"You'll be twenty in a little over a month," he reminded her. "You're not a kid anymore, Bells. And you had weapons, which really is that big of a deal."

"But I didn't use them."

"You still had them."

Bella scoffed.

Charlie took a minute to think, like he was really considering something.

"Look," he began. "I'll let this one go for both you and Leah, but you need to get it together. I don't wanna have to send you to Florida for fighting. It's not like you. And besides, I thought you and Leah were friends. You went on vacation with her. So what happened?" He was in full-on detective mode now, but he sounded like he was trying not to be.

Bella looked down and shook her head. "It's a long story," she said, "but me and her… we just don't get along. I don't think we ever will. Have you ever known somebody like that?"

"There are some people you can't just get through to, but I always try to make peace with people, you know? 'Cause it's better to spread good than bad or whatever that cheesy saying is. It works, though, because I don't feel bad afterward."

"I feel bad," Bella admitted. "It was my fault, and I don't wanna be on bad terms with Leah anymore." It was true. Leah was one of the best friends Bella was ever going to have, and she might have lost her for good. Bella was good at losing people, but she didn't want to be. Aside from her bringing blades and a padlock to the fight, she usually had good intentions, but she was just misunderstood. She couldn't afford to be misunderstood anymore, though. She'd eventually stop getting so many chances to reiterate her point. She might be out of chances now.

"Then you have to fix things the right way," Charlie told her.

"How, Dad?"

"Invite her over for dinner."

She laughed softly through her nose. "Is that how you get your enemies to like you again?"

"It works, I swear," he assured her with a silly smile. "You just kill 'em with the kindness of a good meal."

"I'm just finding it hard to believe that anybody could hate you so much that you've had to cook for them just to make it all better."

"I haven't had too many enemies in my day, but I'm stubborn."

"I'll say," she agreed.

"You're still grounded," he said as he stood up, making his way to his recliner in the living room. "You weren't arrested, but you sure as hell didn't escape punishment."

 _Anything's better than being arrested again_ , she thought. _I'd rather be grounded for a year than in jail for a day._

"How grounded?" she asked.

"You can leave the house for work and that's it." He plopped down into the chair and turned on the television. _SportsCenter_ blared, and he didn't make an effort to turn it down. "The Newtons have been calling, by the way. You might wanna check in with them before you get fired."

"They can't afford to fire me," Bella said plainly. She was their best and most loyal employee, which said a lot about the other ones. The Newtons needed her.

"I don't know, Bells..."

"I'll go by there Monday, but I'll call tomorrow," she said. "I think I'll be fully recovered by then."

"Did you have a good time in Seaside, though?" he asked. "I never got to really hear about it. You slept for two days straight after getting back and I didn't see you until tonight at the beach."

"Seaside was okay," she said shortly. "I had a little fun."

"I'm glad you got the experience and made some memories. Glad you've got some friends up here you can do that kind of stuff with."

"Me, too. I just hope to God I can keep these friends." She was afraid of the verity in her desperation.

"Do the right thing, Bells. I know you can."

* * *

When Bella woke up the next morning, Friday, it was late. The sun created shapes along her bare skin. She laid in bed for a while, watching the shapes move across her body as the clouds simultaneously moved across the sky. She didn't have any desire to do anything or go anywhere. She merely wanted to exist. And exist quietly, at that.

The house phone interrupted her quietness, forcing her to climb out of bed. She went downstairs and picked up the phone just before the call could drop.

"Hello?"

"Bella?"

"Oh, hey, Karen," Bella said as brightly as she could. "How are you?"

"I'm fine." Her voice was sharp. "How have you been?"

"I've been… okay. I was injured during my vacation."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." Bella tried to sound sorry. "I fell down a staircase. I know, super embarrassing. It was pretty bad. I've just been trying to recover. I'm sorry I haven't been calling, though. There's no excuse."

Karen's voice softened. "There isn't," she said, "but take the weekend to recover, okay? I just wanted to make sure you were still alive and everything." She laughed weakly.

Bella tried to laugh back. "Yeah, well, I am," she said. "I think I'll be able to work Monday."

"I hope so. Can you open?"

"Yes. I'll see you then."

"Thank you, Bella."

"Of course, Karen."

Bella hung up and wiped away the bead of sweat rolling down her forehead. She needed to find a new job. Preferably one where she wouldn't have to lie so much.

She looked under the phone and realized she had never noticed the list of numbers taped to the wall underneath. The list contained the number of Charlie's go-to pizza place, one of Renee's old numbers, and the familiar number of Billy Black's home.

In that moment, Bella hated herself for ever forgetting the fact that Jacob Black existed.

She instinctively dialed the number and waited. She wouldn't mind if he didn't pick up. What was she to him, anyway, but a forgettable fling? They had dated for a little while and fucked for a week straight, and then she had broken up with him. Just like that. And while she couldn't pinpoint exactly where they'd go from here, she needed the camaraderie.

She hoped to whatever God was listening that he was still a good kid and would want to talk to her.

The ringing took forever. Maybe he was avoiding her. She would have. She was about to hang up when he finally answered, his husky voice asking, "Hello?"

"Hey, Jake," she said. "It's Bella."

"Bella Swan?"

 _Like you know any other Bellas, you dick._ "Yeah, Bella Swan," she said, her voice salty. "What are you up to?"

"I just woke up," he said curtly. Then he thawed out a little bit, catching his tone as fast as she did. "You wanna hang out or something?"

"Totally," she replied. "I'll pick you up as soon as possible. Be ready."

"Gotcha."

"See ya."

She hung up and then put on some old denim shorts, her black hoodie, and the Converse that had carried her up and down the west coast not so long ago. The ensemble was all she wore these days, and she was too careless to switch things up.

She quickly left her house and arrived at Jacob's the quickest she could (legally). Charlie liked Jacob, so maybe he wouldn't mind Bella blatantly ignoring her being grounded. And if it came down to it, she could just say she went into work for a little while to touch base on some things. She'd be okay.

She was more concerned if she and Jake would be okay, though. Her heart was big, but somewhere she was trying to make more room for him since all she did was occupy his heart in her absence. It wasn't fair.

She pulled up the dirt road that was his driveway and he came out of his garage, walking toward the truck. She parked, got out, and started walking towards him like he was her favorite person.

Upon coming closer, she smiled and ran a hand through her hair. He pulled her into a hug, and it was almost like they were normal again. It was almost like they were true friends who hadn't fucked like crazy for a week only to demolish themselves. Better yet, the way he hugged her made her feel warm, as if she hadn't been ice-cold to him for the longest time.

"Where've you been, man?" she asked once he let her go.

"Just chilling," he replied with a shrug. "Not much else. Cute scratch." He gently but casually ran his thumb along her jaw, tracing Leah's signature.

She playfully pushed his hand away. "Don't even remind me how grounded I am," she said. "Weren't you there last night?"

He shook his head. "Nah. I heard you got busted by the cops, anyway."

She rolled her eyes. "My dad, specifically."

"Damn. Did you at least win?"

"I don't know. What's Leah been saying?"

"Same old shit. I don't really care."

 _Good boy._

"So," she said, changing the subject. "I was thinking we could do breakfast."

"Good, 'cause I'm _starving._ "

"That is quite the shocker," she said sarcastically.

"Ha, ha. Do you want me to drive or what?"

"It's okay," she told him. "I can drive."

They had just made it back to Forks when she realized she was almost out of gas. She pulled into the only gas station in town—the nice one where high schoolers hung out on the daily—and waited as her money turned into fuel.

Jacob stayed in the car, and he didn't know how to feel. Why had she called him? It hadn't even been that long—only a couple weeks, really—but since she had left with the other girls, she didn't seem the same. Some part of her was still wherever she had been. She was different. New. She still had that flaky edge, the part of her that didn't know how things were going to turn out, but she seemed more comfortable in herself. Less regretful and more in the moment.

Even though he didn't know how to feel, Jacob still thought she was beautiful. That was where he was all torn up. She still had tired, sad eyes, but he had missed them. He had missed her curves and her soft brown hair. Bella Swan was still beautiful even though she had been so far away from him, and that was what killed him the most. She was so naturally stunning to him that he'd do anything for her still. He'd wake up and catch a ride with her to get breakfast even though they hadn't talked in weeks. He'd still think they were cool even though they really weren't.

He was the most loyal idiot he'd ever heard of.

But the doubt still hung around in the back of his mind. They decided to go to a diner in Forks since their usual one in Port Angeles had gotten trashed during a robbery a couple weeks ago and was still going through renovations. It was at this new diner that Jacob decided to be a little bolder and braver.

He glanced out the window next to him for a second before meeting gazes with Bella. "Can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead," she said.

"Are we hanging out right now because you have to due to the fact that you have no friends, or because you actually want to?"

She didn't bat a lash. "If I didn't want to hang out with you, I wouldn't have called. You know me, Jake."

"You didn't say that last time."

Her own words rang in her mind. She finally blinked. "Well, here I am. And here you are. I called because I want to hang out with you."

"I just want you to be real with me," he said, his brown eyes slightly pleading.

"I'll only be real with you," she told him. "And I chose to be with you today. We're not friends because we have to be. I picked you. Okay?"

"That's all I had to hear."

The waitress came around to their table with the food. Once she was gone, Jacob gave Bella a look.

"What's that for?" she asked him.

"You said you were grounded, but we're out here. Are you actually grounded?"

She nodded. "Definitely. I am the definition of grounded. The extent is to just about house arrest. He'll probably pick up one of those ankle bracelets on his way home from work tonight."

"You know Chief Swan. How long are you under this house arrest?"

"I don't know; he didn't say. Probably until I make up with Leah… or something."

Jacob stopped chewing and raised his eyebrows. "He's making you say sorry to _Leah_?"

She couldn't even act surprised anymore. She nodded again. "I have to invite her to dinner at my house and talk it out with her like an adult, but there's really no point in trying."

"Yeah, I'd say that chance is long gone," he agreed. "All she ever says besides 'Fuck the world' is 'Fuck Bella.'"

Bella groaned and let her face fall into her hands. She peered up at him through her fingers. "She's still that mad?"

"Some people react differently to almost being killed."

"How would you know about that if you weren't there last night?"

"She still talks about her near-death experience whenever she gets the chance. You didn't actually use those weapons on her, though, did you?"

She shook her head. "No," she said, slightly unsure of herself. "Of course not. I just brought them because… because I don't know why. But it's not like she didn't bring a knife herself. She acts like she wasn't prepared. I mean, the fact that she made me drop my stuff before we even started fighting says enough."

"You know her superiority complex, though," Jacob said.

"Holier than thou," Bella replied, rolling her eyes. "She doesn't have to keep talking about it. It doesn't help the situation at all."

"Maybe it's because you brought a sock in a lock." He took a long sip of his orange juice. "I didn't know you had that hoodrat streak in you."

"Oh, yeah," she said nonchalantly as she tossed her hair. "I've totally committed armed robbery and gotten arrested and all that. Pretty bad-ass."

Jacob laughed, throwing his head back. "Good one."

 _Yeah, good one._

"What are you gonna cook for Leah?" he asked.

"I don't know what dragons like to eat. I'll have to look it up." Then her face lit up. "You should come over, too."

"'Cause I totally wanna be a part of _that_ shitstorm. Sure, sure."

"I was thinking of moral support, but if she decides to bring her knife again then I'll need as many witnesses as I can get. My dad will probably want her mom to come, too. I think that's why he wants me to have Leah over for dinner in the first place."

"Her mom and your dad are together?"

"They have something," she replied. "It's kind of gross, but as long as he's happy..."

"Stepsisters. That's incredible."

"Don't" she said severely. "Maybe we should just stop talking about it if you're not gonna help, Jake."

"Sorry, sorry," he said with his hands up. "Look, you need to relax. You look stressed out. It's not even a huge deal."

She took an aggressive bite of her hash browns. "I guess," she said, her voice bitter.

He put one of his hands on top of hers. She had missed that feeling.

"Lighten up," he told her softly, his pretty brown eyes fixed on hers. "It's gonna be just fine."

 _Why did I ever let him go?_ she thought. _Oh, right. Because I'm a fucking idiot._

She pouted her lips at him. "I'm trusting you again, Jake."

He leaned back against the fake leather seat, but she held onto his hand. She rubbed her thumb against the inside of his wrist.

"Again?" he asked, staring down at her hands. He blinked. "When did I ever break that trust?"

"I never said you did," she replied. "I did."

He bit his lip and let go slowly. He looked out the window again. Her eyes followed. _What's he looking at? What's he thinking about? Where will we go? What will we be?_

"I'm sorry, you know," she told him, not breaking focus with the gray pavement outside. "For all that." She didn't feel the need to explain her self-loathing and how it didn't rectify certain complications. He knew that well enough.

They were in a strange place, at a strange time. They could either start dating again or never interact for as long as they knew each other. The normal medium was gone, just like his virginity. And his tolerance for bullshit. And her desire to be complicated. He was sharper and she was softer. He was more selfish, or more caring for himself and his own emotions, and she would let him. She didn't want to control him. He didn't want to keep branding himself as the good kid, the guy who was up for anything even if it hurt him. When did being complacent ever do anything for anybody?

But he still held her hand, or she held his, really. She didn't want to let him slip through her fingers again when he still meant so much to her, now that she knew the truth. She didn't want to trust anybody but him.

He looked forward again; she followed.

"I forgive you," he told her, careful not to say _It's okay._

She smiled, carefully placing her hoodie-covered free hand over her mouth. He wondered why he felt the need to conceal her real smile, the subtle smile that made her eyes close a little bit, the smile that slightly made her nose crinkle. What was she so ashamed of?

She squeezed his hand. "Thank you," she whispered behind her sleeve.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Up next: a lot that I don't want to spoil._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	36. XXXVI

_**A/N:** I own no part of Twilight. Also, I'm sorry. I got super behind because life got in the way for a minute and I couldn't find the time to write the entirety of this chapter in one focused sitting. Hopefully, I think the wait was worth it. This chapter (I'm pretty sure the longest one yet) contains: revelations, a fake apology, and a whole lot of Leah x Paul. _

_Enjoy._

 **XXXVI.**

 _if i told you that a flower bloomed in a dark room, would you trust it?_

* * *

"I just wanna see Kim," Leah lied to Sue. "I miss her."

Sue was in the kitchen cooking lunch for one. It was her first Saturday day off in a while, and she was going to treat herself. "You see Kim damn near everyday," she replied. "I don't know why you _have_ to see her now."

"She needs to talk to me."

"About?"

"Family issues," Leah said on the spot. "She could really use my support right now."

Sue gave Leah a wary look. "Is she okay?"

"Yeah. She just needs someone to talk to. We're gonna go hang out. Probably get something to eat. Talk it out, you know."

She peered out the window in the living room. Paul's car was still patiently waiting in the driveway. She hoped Sue wouldn't see it. She also hoped Sue wouldn't notice the minimal makeup she was wearing. Since she had bought makeup (actual quality makeup that would have cost an arm and a leg) for Venice, Leah had fallen into an epic infatuation with eyeliner and mascara. And if Sue saw the black crop top she was wearing under her hoodie (to go with her expensive-looking white jeans), she would never make it out of the house alive. Most of her new clothes were with Emily or Kim or Bella since they had all gotten mixed up during their departures from Venice, and while she wanted them back, she wouldn't mind if Sue didn't know about the majority of them.

"You're grounded," Sue reminded her.

"Mom," Leah said sternly. "I've been going out a whole bunch anyway."

Sue sighed. "I knew you would."

"And," Leah added, "I'm about to start college. I would really like to hang out with my friends before I can't anymore."

"Aren't all of you going to the community college, anyway?"

"Mom, please."

"Whatever," Sue said. "Go ahead."

"And I can spend the night?"

Sue rolled her eyes. "You're probably going to, anyway."

Leah picked her purse up off the couch as she ran to the front door. "Thanks!" she called behind her. She slammed the door behind her.

 _Lying just keeps getting easier,_ she decided.

* * *

Leah and Paul had gotten as far as his driveway when he finally asked her what she wanted to do tonight. All they had done was listen to music and share innocent kisses in his car.

She propped her arm up against the dash and leaned forward, looking at him from the side. "I don't really know."

"Well, what are you in the mood for?"

"Honestly?"

"Honestly."

"You're gonna laugh," she warned him.

"I laugh at everything you say."

She pursed her lips. "Mm-hmm."

"What do you wanna do, Lee?" he asked. "What are you just dying to do right now, in this given moment? Hit me."

"I wanna go and party."

"You wanna go and _party_?"

"Mm-hmm."

He laughed (which was inevitable, really). " _Sheeeeiiiit_. Didn't know you had it in you."

"Why not?"

"You don't exactly seem like a bundle of fun," he said. "No offense."

"Some taken," she replied. "And besides, it's not like you know me that much."

He put his hand on her left thigh, slightly rubbing his thumb towards the middle. "Keep on telling yourself that, Lee-Lee," he said. "Ain't nobody know you like I do."

He was wrong, but she didn't fight it. Instead, she moved his hand away, unzipped her hoodie, and took it off, throwing it in the backseat. She sat with her back against the window, exposing her sleeveless black top, which revealed just the right amount of her flat, tan stomach. "It's not like I got all dressed up for nothing," she said.

 _Oh, damn,_ Paul thought. He tried to play it cool. "I guess I'm obligated to show you off."

She smirked at him. "I know."

He sat back and rubbed at his stubbly chin. "You could just show yourself off, though," he suggested. "Since you've got all that power and shit."

"Oh, really?" Her smirk grew wider. There was just something about power that made her feel a certain way. The fact that Paul, one of the most self-serving, self-empowering people she'd ever known, was telling her this made her feel even better.

He put his hand against her thigh again, and she didn't push it away. Instead, she inched it further up.

"You need," she said, "to learn how to keep your hands to yourself, Lahote."

"Listen, Clearwater," he replied, "I could keep my hands to myself, but when you're sitting there looking like that, why would I want to?"

She all the way leaned forward and gave him a swift peck on the corner of his mouth. He had started to quickly move his hands to get a good grab of her backside, but she had already backed up again.

"Try harder," she whispered with a mischievous smile. Then she unlocked her door and started to get out.

"Going home already?" he asked.

She shut the door and made her way to the front steps of his house. She looked at him over her shoulder and nodded her head over to his front door. "I _am_ home."

* * *

She ended up spending the night, but they hadn't done anything less innocent than make out. Leah liked to tease Paul. It was wonderful and long-deserved to have this much power over him. She wanted to slap her old self for making Paul immortal and perfect in her head. She loved him, but he was going to have to work for her. She was comfortable being a little demanding, and he was up for the chase. Of course he was.

She got dropped off Sunday morning, and after chastely kissing him goodbye, she made her way to the front door of her house. Sue's car was in the driveway, but knowing how tired she usually was whenever she was home, she had to still be in bed. Leah was able to breathe easily, but when she entered the house, she really wished she hadn't.

Leah saw the back of her mother's head before anything else. Sue usually sat in front of the television, but it was hardly ever on mute and she often greeted whoever walked into the house, which meant she was in a good mood.

It was absolutely silent right now.

Leah stopped breathing.

"Come sit down, Lee," Sue said.

Leah rounded the corner into the living room and sat on the loveseat in the corner. Sue sat on the other couch, sitting straight up. On the floor between them was a large black garbage bag.

"What's in the bag?" Leah asked.

Sue dumped the bag's contents onto the floor. All sorts of clothes—the new clothes Leah had bought for the trip—fell out.

"You tell me," Sue said.

Leah was dead silent. Sue gave her the Death Glare. That one used to make Leah pee herself when she was little, but it didn't work now.

"So I buy you this bikini," Sue began. "It's real cute, a little two-piece purple one with polka dots. I buy it as a surprise for when you get home from Seaside and I remember to get it out of my car. I'm about to drop it off in your room when someone comes up to the front door, and it's Kim. You remember her, right? She drops off this big-ass bag of clothes—and they're real pretty-ass, expensive-ass clothes, you know—and she's about to leave. I'm all, 'What are these for?' She's like, 'They're Leah's.' I ask her where you are since _you_ told me you were with _her_ , and she tells me to go ask Paul. 'Go ask _Paul'_?"

Leah remained silent. She was shocked but strangely relieved, seeing as Kim could have easily told Sue the complete truth.

"Where the fuck did these clothes come from, Lee?" Sue demanded. "Because I know we don't have shit like Forever 21 around here. I don't even know what in the hell that is. You better say something to me."

"Paul," Leah croaked out, acting fast. "Paul gave me the clothes."

"And how the fuck was he able to afford all these nice clothes, Leah?"

Leah shrugged. "I… I don't—"

"Don't give me that shit!" Sue exclaimed. "Tell me how the fuck he was able to afford these clothes."

Leah was silent again. She was so wrapped up in the lies that she couldn't even be confident in the false facts of them.

"Oh, right," Sue said condescendingly. "You don't want your little boyfriend getting in trouble, right? You don't want him getting arrested again and going where the big kids go, 'cause you know you'll never see him again."

Leah bit her tongue and balled her fists up against her thighs.

Sue noticed instantly. Her voice was as sharp as a knife. "You're not gonna try to punch me like you did Bella," she spat. Then she made her tone softer, as if she was trying to understand Leah. "Now, I need you to tell me why you've got Paul buying you clothes. What do you owe him? I know things have been tight around here, but I can't see why you'd have to do things with him for—"

"Mom, it's not even _like_ that," Leah interrupted, her voice whiny.

"Well, that's what it sounds like, Lee."

Leah widened her eyes and raised her eyebrows. "You legit think I'm sleeping with Paul for clothes. Mom, that is so not me. Like, at all."

" _Are_ you sleeping with him?" Sue demanded.

Leah could either lie and get murdered or tell the truth and make her mother cry. "I only did it once," she said quietly.

Sue frowned and knit her eyebrows together. She was about to cry, for sure.

 _Oh shit,_ Leah thought. _Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit._

"Mom," she said sternly. "We were being safe, I swear. I promise. It was a really long time ago. And we didn't do it because he bought me clothes. He bought me clothes because… because he likes me—a lot. And I really like him, too."

"I've always thought that boy was trouble," Sue murmured.

Leah nodded. "I know," she said, her voice soft, "but he's changed and—"

"Child, _please._ What do you know about change? You don't know anything about people changing, because when they say they do, they always end up doing the same shit."

"He's changed for real, though, Mom. I promise."

"The boy's bad," she went on. "Ever since you've been with him you've lost your scholarship and got into fights, and now you're having sex. I don't like it, Lee."

Leah looked at her mother with pleading eyes. "Mom, I really like him," she repeated. "And none of that happened because of him. He actually makes things better. Could you please give him a chance?"

Sue side-eyed her, but didn't say anything.

"Please," Leah said. "I like him a lot."

"I know, I know, you like him." Sue sighed. "Okay. I'll give him a chance, but I'm not gonna keep quiet on it."

 _Never thought you would._ "Thank you, Mom."

"Mm-hmm," she replied skeptically. "Now take those clothes and go to your room."

Leah tried to keep her attitude in check as she went upstairs. _Kim just fucked everything up,_ she thought.

She passed by Seth in the hallway. He was heading towards the kitchen with an empty plate.

"So you found a sugar daddy," he said. He was seventeen now, six-foot-three, and with minimal facial hair growing over his baby face, so he thought he was all that. "You think you can get him to pay our tuitions?"

"Shut the hell up," Leah muttered.

* * *

Leah tried not to stay angry, but it was around three when she remembered that she had the worst attitude on the planet; there would be no use in ignoring it.

She went to the kitchen telephone and dialed Kim's number. Leah remembered Emily calling her _petty_ and _not a nice person_ and _heartless_ and a _self-righteous asshole_. Leah didn't take any offense now that she thought about it. She was all of those things and she could admit it because she preferred to live in honesty when it came to judging herself. That was what really mattered.

She was also honest at judging other people. And that mattered, too.

Kim never picked up the phone, so Leah left a courteous message in her absence.

"Hey, Kim," she began, "you're not fucking fair. Thanks for telling my mom about Paul. She appreciated it. I did, too, and I especially appreciate the fact that you're a fucking hypocrite. For the longest time, I didn't say shit about you having a boyfriend, even when you didn't talk to me. I kept quiet about Jared until it was okay for you to say you were with him. Then the second you got your feelings hurt, you decided to throw me under the goddamn bus and let my mom know about Paul. That was really fucking sweet. Thanks for not saying anything about the clothes, though. I guess you're not as much of a bitch as you could be."

She hung up. She had gotten a lot off her chest, but she didn't feel any better.

Maybe she could start lying to herself.

* * *

After Sue had cooked dinner that night, the telephone rang. Since Seth was closest, he got up to answer the call.

Leah snapped her head up. _Who is it?_ she mouthed.

"Oh, hey, Bella," Seth said warily. "What's up? Oh, you wanna talk to Leah?"

"I'm not here," Leah said loudly, making sure Bella heard.

Seth rolled his eyes. "She's not here right now," he said slowly, giving his sister a peculiar look.

Sue got up from the table and took the phone from Seth.

"Sorry 'bout that, hon," she said into the phone.

 _Hon?_ Leah thought. _She doesn't even call me that._

"Leah's here," Sue explained. "She's just a little busy right now. What did you want to tell her?" She waited patiently. It was the only thing Leah had ever seen her mother do patiently.

"Mm-hmm," Sue said in understanding. "Okay. Dinner sounds great. We'll all be there. I'll have to check with my work schedule, but I think I might be off by then tomorrow. Six, right? Okay. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you, Bella. Tell your father I said hi. Take care." She hung up and turned to her kids, who were each wondering why she had gotten so nice all of a sudden.

Ignoring their looks, she announced, "We're having dinner at Charlie's tomorrow night at six."

"Who's _we_?" Leah asked.

"All of us," Sue clarified.

"She tried to kill me, like, three days ago, remember?" Leah exclaimed.

"Oh, sweetie, she didn't mean it. And what she's doing is really nice of her. She's trying to make peace."

"She can go die in a hole instead," Leah grumbled under her breath.

Sue didn't hear her. "Bella is such a nice girl," she said. "She's got manners. You ought to be more like her."

Leah rolled her eyes. If she wasn't so tired, she'd be more offended. "Do I have to go, though?" she asked.

"She's having the dinner for you," her mother explained. "So, yes, you do."

"Can I bring Paul?"

"Does Paul live under this roof?"

"Mom, I'm not gonna go unless I can bring Paul."

"It's not my house," Sue said with a shrug. "You have to ask Bella yourself. So you better get to it."

Leah got out of her chair and called the Swan residence.

"Hello?" Bella asked.

"It's Leah."

"Oh, hey. How's it going?"

 _She is so full of shit_ , Leah thought. "I was wondering if I can bring Paul over tomorrow. For dinner."

"Uh, I guess," Bella said nonchalantly. "Go ahead."

"Thanks." Leah hung up before she could hear anything else.

All Sue did was shake her head. "That boy better fix your attitude tomorrow before I do," she warned.

* * *

The following evening at six o'clock on the dot, Sue rang the doorbell at Charlie and Bella's house. Charlie answered it and warmly greeted Sue, Leah, Seth, and Paul (even though he didn't really know Paul) with handshakes and a brief hug for Sue. Leah could smell the falseness on him. Did he teach Bella to be that way?

Bella was in the kitchen finishing up dinner when the Clearwaters and Paul arrived, so Leah didn't feel the need to greet her. She instead saw Jacob and Billy, and decided to say hi to them. While she didn't find Jacob particularly interesting or smart, Leah thought he was better company than Bella. Anybody was. However, Seth practically stole Jacob's attention from her, and they engaged themselves in a conversation that seemed to have been going on for months based on how deep it was. Leah had trouble decoding the context.

So Leah and Paul sat patiently on the living room loveseat, talking among themselves. She supposed they didn't really need anybody but each other, and Sue wasn't any help since Charlie had offered her a beer and she hadn't refused.

Leah cupped her cheek in her own hand and leaned forward, putting her elbows on her thighs. "I'm bored already," she said.

Paul shrugged, his eyes attached to the giant plasma screen in the middle of the room. _SportsCenter_ was on, naturally. "Guy's got a nice TV, though."

Leah didn't say anything for a while after that; Paul was clearly enthralled.

Dinner was ready only a few minutes later, and the second Leah sat down at the dining room table with Paul and the six other people, she really wished she hadn't come at all.

Charlie Swan wasn't necessarily a bad guy to her; he was just a little clueless and overly trying to be inviting. He didn't seem to be attempting to take the place of her father on purpose, but the way he spoke could mean otherwise.

"So," he began, looking straight at Leah from across the table, "how's basketball going?"

She tried not to look offended. "Well, uh," she said politely, "I haven't played since I was sixteen."

"Oh. Sorry." Charlie went back to eating, and Leah decided she didn't hate him. He could have done worse; he could have asked why she wasn't playing basketball anymore.

It just now occurred to her that she would be twenty in November. _Twenty._ Since she had lost that scholarship at the tender age of seventeen (and right near her birthday, too), she hadn't done a lot to make up for it. She'd graduated, sure, but it didn't mean much. Reality had long settled in and she wasn't going anywhere big. Nothing like the University of Pennsylvania. She had gotten arrested, into fights, and simply fucked over. She was going to attend community college after a gap year.

She simply wasn't shit in the world. She wasn't half the shit she had been brought up to be. Maybe it was just the verity in her role in society that had brought her down as opposed to bad luck. Maybe it was just inevitable.

So she didn't hate Charlie for asking why. She'd give him that.

Dinner was an overall time-consuming experience. Bella never officially said sorry for almost killing Leah, the food wasn't even really seasoned, and Sue's "one last beer" became three over the course of a couple hours in front of the television and Charlie. Leah and Paul made their escape in his car. She'd never seen that little pimp mobile drive so fast.

They ended up in the First Beach parking lot. He parked far in the back, and within minutes, she had forgotten about the awful dinner party, had forgotten about Bella's forced truce-making, and had even forgotten her own name. All she knew was Paul's name, and she wore it out in sighs of pleasure as he explored her body in the front seat.

"I love you, Leah," was what he told her.

She grew quiet as she thought about it, and then she became still altogether. They hadn't gotten very far, and she wasn't very close to naked, but she suddenly felt the need to cover herself up again. Why had she bared herself like that to him when it would only culminate to this?

"You mean that?" she asked.

"Why wouldn't I?"

"I just… I don't know."

"You don't trust me," he concluded.

"It's not that," she argued, "it's just that—"

His voice wasn't as angry as it was reflective. "It's exactly that. You don't trust me, Lee."

She closed her eyes and focused on the warmth of his hands. His hands were burning against her cold ones. Maybe he'd help thaw her out. He was good at that.

"I'm finding it hard to trust you again," she said. "I just get so worried you're gonna change all of a sudden. And you know I don't do well with change. It doesn't like me."

"I know."

"So please don't rush this," she whispered. "I wanna take my time. I wanna know that what we're doing is right."

"Baby, I promise it's right," he told her.

"Then keep it."

She opened her eyes, and he brought her hand up to his mouth. He gently pressed his lips to the back of her hand and slowly placed kisses on each of her fingers, all without breaking eye contact.

"Can you promise me something?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Don't have me waiting too long."

She giggled softly—it was more air than laughter, since she was trying to be quiet for no given reason. "You just can't wait to get into my pants," she accused him.

He smiled back. "I don't even feel bad about it."

"I'm traditional at heart," she told him. "You've gotta court me with porch swings and iced tea and romantic walks down the beach, you know? I love that sappy shit, and I'm high maintenance, anyway."

"Trust me," he replied, "I already know."

She punched him in the arm. "As if that's a bad thing. It's guys like you that give girls like me a bad rep."

"Yeah, okay," was all that he said, letting her win. She appreciated the gesture; he clearly knew what was right for him.

* * *

The next few days consisted of Leah constantly calling Paul on his cell phone. She had learned his cell phone number and memorized it in virtually no time. She called him often, especially late at night when she needed to hear his voice.

Monday night's call led to her falling asleep sitting in her kitchen chair. Tuesday night's call turned into a Wednesday breakfast date at three in the morning. Wednesday night, he couldn't talk; he just got a job at the convenience store on the rez and was closing that night. Thursday night, the second she called, he told her he was in her driveway. They went to his house, just down the street.

She sat down on his bed, and just by her body language, all tight and uncomfortable, he knew something was different.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Well, since you asked," she said, looking over at him, "my uterus has been trying to kill me for the past couple days, but I'm fine."

The realization settled in slowly but surely. "Oh. _Oh._ " He got up and picked up his car keys.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"To the store." He was already halfway out the door.

"What are you getting from the store?" she called to him.

"Don't worry about it. Just put on some TV."

The front door slammed behind him, and Leah exhaled sharply. She'd never understand him; getting used to that fact would be really difficult.

She turned on the small, box television and tried to drown out her cramps with trash reality TV.

* * *

For as long as Paul had been acquainted with the county, he really didn't see that much of Forks. Ever. The town didn't mean much to him. It had meant so little to him over the years that, in fact, tonight was his first time at the grocery store.

 _What do you know?_ he thought. _This dinky little town even has a grocery store. I've been getting all my instant Ramen noodles at the shitty convenience store on the rez all this time._

Another thing he didn't know: women had it _hard._ And fucking expensive.

He nearly had to tilt his head back to get the full view of options regarding feminine products. What did Leah like? Pads? Tampons? He got packages of both, and since the medication was nearby, he got her a bottle of ibuprofen. He knew that the cramps hurt. Leah was damn near Superwoman, and if she was in pain, it had to be bad.

 _She's gotta eat,_ he decided. _Girls like to eat, especially when they're on their periods. No, no, you can't get something cold; that never helps. She needs something hot… like soup. Soup! Chicken tortilla soup is probably spicy, too. She'd like that._

Paul put his wallet towards anything he could think of that Leah might like. It was all worth it.

He found Leah curled up in his bed, watching TV. She had his quilt pulled up to her nose as she tried to stay warm, even though it was just about August and the nights weren't that cold anymore.

"I was starting to think you disappeared on me," she said, her voice bleak. She didn't move.

He brought the plastic bag of groceries over to the bed. "Cheer up, buttercup," he said as he started to empty the bag's contents.

"You're not allowed to call me that," she said seriously. "Whatcha got there?"

"Check it out for yourself."

She sat upright and looked down at the bag. Her expression turned less hostile and more pleasantly surprised. "Oh my God," she cried. "You got me gummy bears? And chocolate? Oh my _God._ "

"Nuh-uh," he said, "you've gotta have dinner first. I got you chicken tortilla soup."

"I don't have a cold," she reminded him. "I'm on my period."

"Okay, but you're hungry, right?"

She pursed her lips. "Right. Fine." She kept rummaging through the bag. "I love green tea. That's my favorite tea. And ibuprofen is my savior, thank you very much. Also, why did you buy me a toothbrush?"

"For whenever you spend the night."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "And I guess that's also what the condoms are for?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "That's for later."

She nodded. "Nice, Lahote. Real nice."

He pecked his lips on her cheek. "The nicest. Now come on, let's make you some soup."

* * *

Leah awakened before Paul the next morning, Friday, and in the overcast light, she realized that she had all the luck in the whole world.

He was hers. She was his. They were real—finally. She didn't have to worry about him disappearing anymore because he had nothing to run away from. All he had was her, and she was okay with it. All she really needed was him. Now they had a sort of balance that was easy to maintain. She had felt so inadequate back before she knew they had the capacity to be equals. Now, she felt okay. She felt deserving because she _was_.

He snoozed softly, his cheek pressed against the pillow. He looked tranquil for the first time in his entire life. Some people, like Embry, had been born smart. Some people, like Leah, had been born complicated. Some people, like Emily, had simply been born sad. Paul had been born angry. He'd practically kicked his way out of the womb, and while he was an adult who had been through treatment for it now, he was still that angry kid. Leah hadn't seen much of it recently, but she knew he still had the capability to be the kid who had kicked teachers in the shins, who fought with fists instead of words. Paul was better now—a lot better—but he was who he was. She loved him enough to not want to change him for anything, even if he could be crazy.

She wondered if he loved her enough—through her complications and all—to not want to change her for anything. But somewhere, she knew that if one of them lost the other person, they'd lose a part of themselves. She was afraid of change and she had always been that way, but she was mortified by loss. The two experiences together were a deadly duo. Because of this, only one question rang in her head, haunting her by the minute.

 _What will I lose if I change?_

* * *

"Paul, you better tell me where the hell we're driving or I'm gonna fling myself out of this car."

"No, you won't."

She wouldn't. "Yes, I will."

Despite driving eighty-nine miles an hour on the highway, he turned to look at her. "We're going to Tacoma," he said.

" _Tacoma_?" she asked incredulously. "For what?"

"'Cause you wanna go and party."

"I'll actually wanna go home if you keep fucking with me."

"I want you to meet my mom," he said. Then he looked back at the road.

Her mood didn't soften. "Then why didn't you tell me to dress better?" she demanded. "I'm wearing jeans and this top that makes me look like a ho and—"

"You look perfect," he stated as if it was a fact.

"I'm meeting your _mother_ and I've got my _stomach_ out."

"She's not that traditional," he promised. "I swear."

"Is she inviting us over for dinner?" she asked. "I should have brought something."

"It's not that formal," he said, shaking his head. "Especially not for us. It's just for my _prima_. Her name's Camila and it's her _quince._ "

"Aren't _quinces_ typically formal?"

"Don't worry about it."

"I hate when you say that," she said, frowning. " _Don't worry about it._ It only makes me more worried."

"Have I ever done anything to make you worried when I say that?" he asked.

She couldn't lie to him. "No," she said through her teeth.

He took a hand from the wheel and put it on hers. He was really fond of that. "Then don't even worry about it," he told her.

She squeezed his hand gently. "It's a good thing you're persuasive."

The trip to Tacoma was long, but there was a lot to look at for Leah. She had never really gone anywhere else in the state besides Seattle and Olympia, for basketball. Tacoma was right in the middle of the two cities. She didn't understand how she had missed it all those times.

The party was held at a hall just outside of the city, and from the moment they entered the parking lot, Paul and Leah heard the traditional Mexican music blasting. They were late, but it didn't really matter.

Paul offered his arm to her once they got out of the car, and she held on; he could feel her nerves. "Lighten up, buttercup," he told her. She didn't even fight the horrendous nickname.

"I'll try," she said.

"You wanna go and party," he reminded her.

"You're the worst," she groaned.

"Lighten up," he said again. "You look hot as hell, you know that? It'd be a damn shame if I couldn't show you off."

"If you say so."

They entered the building just as somebody else was exiting. The second Paul entered with Leah, he was instantly recognized and Leah was instantly lost. Her high school Spanish education, most helpful for describing colors of clothing with correct grammar, was of no use to her now, so she merely looked pretty and said _Hola_ back when somebody addressed her.

Suddenly, a shorter woman gave Paul a hug big enough to compensate for her tiny frame. She had to have been his mother. She gave him kisses on the cheek as he leaned down to her height. As they talked, Leah wondered why everyone's mom but hers was so nice. She also regretted wearing a top that showed as much of her stomach as it did.

The woman then turned to Leah and started speaking to her, looking at both her and Paul; Leah had no idea what she was saying. All she heard was _bienvenida_ and maybe _novia._

" _No habla español_ ," Paul said to his mother once he caught sight of her frantic eyes.

"Oh!" she said. Then she pulled Leah in for a hug and kissed her cheeks. "Your name?" she asked.

Leah relaxed and smiled. "Leah."

Paul's mother smiled back genuinely. "Rosa."

Leah couldn't understand how she had never met Rosa before today. She loved her already.

* * *

The party lasted for hours and hours, until the sky was black. After saying their last goodbyes, and Paul promising his mother and cousins he'd be back soon, he and Leah retreated to his car.

"So what'd you think?" he asked.

"Your mom is the sweetest person I've ever met," she said, "I can't dance as well as I thought I could, and my feet hurt."

He laughed. "That's what I thought you'd say."

As he began to pull the car out of the parking lot, he asked, "What did you and my mom talk about?"

"Life," Leah said. "You. I think she likes me, but I can't be sure. She seems nice enough."

"She's nice to everyone," Paul replied. "But you can tell when she really likes you. I think she does. She's gotta."

"Because I'm so sociable and personable, right?"

He laughed again. "Mm-hmm."

Knowing he wasn't going to make the drive home tonight, he got them a hotel room. She realized she didn't have any overnight clothes with her, and she began to strip for him in the dim lighting.

"You're not fair," he said to her, sitting down on the bed. She threw her top to the corner of the room, and his eyes didn't follow it.

"Why's that?" she asked.

"Aren't you…?"

She shook her head. "It ended this afternoon." Then she smiled.

He grabbed her by the hips and brought her close to him, between his legs.

She giggled. "God, you're so eager, Paul."

His voice was low. "I want you, Lee," he said. "Remember that one night when I drove you back from Port Angeles? Remember what you told me?"

Playing with the hair at the nape of his neck, she nodded. She had never forgotten.

"I want you for real," he told her.

She ran her tongue over her lips. She really considered if she believed him or not, and if she trusted him. But when she looked into his eyes, she felt silly for even doubting him. She knew he wanted her for real. It was only clear.

Then she let him prove it.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I'll update very soon. _

_Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	37. XXXVII

_**A/N:** I own no part of Twilight. Okay. So I think I'm about 2 chapters behind on my schedule. I'll catch up somehow. I hate falling behind, but I've been so busy with school and work and... life. I've also been reading a lot, some for pleasure and some for business. So I've been busy, but I really appreciate the feedback you guys have been giving me. Last chapter was one of my favorite ones so far (after chapter 22, of course), and I'm glad you guys have enjoyed it. But today's a new day, and this chapter, chapter 37, is also new. The perspective shifts back to Emily, but I swear she's okay this time. There's also some more of good guy Embry Call. (If you think Emily and Embry never had some sort of background relationship, please refer to chapter 2. Like I said, anything and anybody can come back in this story.)_

 _Enjoy._

 **XXXVII.**

 _finding time to make my words better_

* * *

Life after Venice—life on Earth—picked up for Emily rather abruptly. She had things to do. Not many things, but worrying wasn't one of them. She hadn't totally forgotten about it like Leah and Bella had, but she didn't continue to live in fear because of it like Kim did. As always, Emily was right in the middle. Sometimes Venice and its events haunted her, but she just needed to focus on something else and keep moving. It was one of the bravest decisions she'd ever made.

August arrived, and she found herself doing the same old thing, but in different ways. Was there a word for that? She had decided she didn't even really like the cello. She was writing again, not because she was particularly sadder than usual, but because she needed the cash. She discovered online magazines and how much they needed people to write short articles for them, and she had been consumed since. She had long left her old waitress job since she had moved to La Push, so she was trying to work between home and other odd jobs now, but Sam was often gone. She would have been worried if it weren't for the fact that when he came home, it was with a paycheck. He was busy not drinking and she was busy not getting pregnant. He was out of the house and out of trouble. She stayed at home, occasionally day drinking to curb her usual tensions, and wrote. For Sam and Emily, it worked.

She picked up her novel yet again that August, but it must have been a bad idea. The first day she began a new document to start a new outline of the story, her laptop crashed and froze. She immediately knew who to call.

"Piece of trash," she muttered at her computer as she scrolled through the contacts on her cell phone. She didn't have to look very far for the right person, thankfully.

Embry picked up on the first ring. "Yeah?"

"My laptop's fucking up again," she said.

"I'll be over in five."

He was at her front door in three minutes, tops. They sat on the living room couch with her laptop on the coffee table. She leaned forward, acting like she knew what was going on.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I was trying to open a new document," she explained, "and at first it crashed on me, so I tried to close everything with the task manager, and then—wait, what just happened?"

Embry had pressed some keys, and now the laptop screen was a foreboding dark blue. He remained quiet, still pressing keys. Text started to quickly move down the screen, but it didn't help.

"Your hard drive is one hundred percent messed up," he stated, turning his head to her.

"Oh, God," she whispered.

"I hope you didn't have your birth certificate on there."

"I didn't have anything important," she told him. "I usually keep everything on a flash drive."

"Okay, good."

She couldn't keep her eyes off of the piece-of-shit device. "So it's broken."

"Yeah, pretty much. When I came by about a month ago, it seemed to be coming to its end."

"Rest in pieces," she mumbled.

He chuckled. She didn't want to admit that it was a lovely sound on him.

"I know a guy," he began. "I can bum a cheap but good laptop off of him."

"How cheap?"

"I don't think you'll need too much power," he observed. "You just read and write articles, right? Use the Internet?"

She nodded. "And download music, but don't tell the feds."

"Wouldn't dream of it. So you need a computer that works for a college student," he said.

"Don't even remind me," she replied. "I still have to get my shit together for September." Her second year at Peninsula College was about to start, and she'd be taking up online classes this time. She wasn't very confident in how well she'd do.

"Me, too," Embry said. Even though it hadn't been necessary, he'd taken a gap year like everyone else his age before moving on to community college. He felt really behind, but he'd had other things to focus on. For one thing, he, Sam, and Seth (but mostly him and Seth) had been trying to locate his father for the longest time, constantly meeting between work hours and Seth's high school hours, constantly online looking for clues and paths, and they'd come up with nothing. Straight dead-ends. Last week was when he'd decided that maybe he didn't need to know. If the guy hadn't taken the time to meet Embry after nineteen years, he had to be a real asshole. Embry would save himself the time; he only wished he could get the effort and sleepless nights back.

"How much will it cost?" Emily asked. "The laptop?"

"I've got it," Embry told her.

"I can pay you back," she said.

He shook his head. "No, no. My treat."

 _Wow._

"Thank you," she said. "I really appreciate it."

"No problem. From a friend to another friend. I'll get it to you tomorrow."

She sat back on the couch and propped her feet up on the coffee table. "Since I guess I have no more work to do," she began, "do you wanna get something to eat? I'm starving."

"That sounds like a good idea," Embry replied easily. "I know a place in Port Angeles."

"Which one? There are only so many decent places to eat."

He was always trying to outdo somebody, show them something new. "A pizza place," he said. "You haven't been there."

"Try me."

"Floriano's. It opened about three weeks ago."

She didn't want to ask what they were waiting for. She didn't want to rush into things anymore—she had no reason to. All she told him was, "Let's go, then, if you want to."

* * *

Floriano's was everything and more. It'd be Emily's favorite place for forever and a day. She could see it like that easily enough. She'd eat real Italian pizza ("none of that fake-ass Pizza Hut shit," according to Embry) and drink soda and stare at him half the time and at her notebook for the other half. And somewhere in between, she'd stare out the large windows behind him, where the people of downtown Port Angeles carried on with their lives. She was still into people-watching.

Emily liked Floriano's so much because it was a vacuum. Time didn't pass there, and maybe it had to do with her. Maybe it had to do with Embry. He wasn't into rushing her, reminding her that he was on a strict time schedule. He had time, and she hated to compare him with Sam, but Sam never, ever had time, nor would he give it to her (in all meanings of the saying). It was sad, really, but so was Sam. And so was Emily. And so was Embry. They were all just sad, sad, sad people.

Embry made Emily less sad, though. He did.

They got home from Floriano's later that afternoon, and life in the badlands resumed. He told her that he had to go to work, since he had the odd afternoon-to-late-night shift at the diner tonight. The place was still recuperating—it'd be a slow process for the restaurant and its employees alike. Everything was slow around here whether anybody liked it or not.

"I'll get your new-ish computer to you tomorrow morning," Embry said to Emily at her front porch. She was against the front door, and he was balancing on the bottom stair, looking up at her. "Promise."

"Do you work tomorrow?" she asked, careful not to sound too desperate too soon.

"Yeah, from nine to five," he replied.

"Maybe I'll come see you. If you want to, of course."

He nodded, also careful not to sound too desperate too soon. "Trust me. I want to."

She smiled at him. "Thanks again."

He stepped back and off the stair. He waved as he back away. "Catch ya later."

The next morning, when Emily went to check the mail, she nearly stepped on the tightly-packed, relatively heavy cardboard box on her welcome mat. Taped onto the bottom of it was a sheet of paper. In scratchy, boyish handwriting, there was a message.

 _From a friend to another friend._

* * *

The becoming of Emily and Embry was a slow and steady one. Once they got over the glaring similarity in their names (and Emily just decided to be Em around him), they became comfortable. It was all she could really ask for.

In between her subtle day drinking (which he noticed) and his work hours, they didn't date so much as they enjoyed each other's company. It wasn't awkward. It wasn't weird. It was just _them._

It was the first stormy day in a while when they found themselves stuck in her car. They had planned on going to see a drive-in movie all the way in Sequim, but it was definitely going to be rained out. It was typical of Washington weather, but it had been so easy to forget. Instead of driving the two hours back home, they took coverage at the movie theater in Sequim. It was bigger than the one in Port Angeles, and Embry was having a ball just existing there.

The movie they decided to see—a somewhat funny one that had gotten decent reception from critics—wouldn't start for another forty-five minutes, so Emily took out the journal she always kept with her in her car. There on the bench in the lobby, she folded her legs and started to write.

"Sorry," she said, even though she wasn't. "I just came up with something good."

"How's your novel going?" he asked.

She looked up at him, remembering that he knew something so close and personal to her. Was he deserving now? She still had to figure it out.

"I don't know if it's going at all," she told him honestly. He was good with truthfulness. "I've started over too many times to count. I've probably got seven novellas under my belt now."

She'd gotten the initial idea years ago, when she had been in the eighth grade, when she had felt her mental health had started to deteriorate. She tried not to think about the end of middle school to the beginning of high school. She didn't have fond memories of her scene kid haircut or her scared silence or the competitiveness that came with playing the cello, which ultimately destroyed her. She didn't like the feeling of being conformed. That was why she had started writing her novel. But six years was a long time. She wondered what she would say to old Emily. Younger Emily Young. _Guess what, kid? You've gotten pregnant twice and you haven't killed yourself yet. Gotta love it._

"Prolific," Embry commented.

"I'd say pathetic."

"Hey, don't knock yourself. The longest thing I've ever done was stay in my house for a whole summer, watching movies online."

She raised her eyebrows. "At least you finished the movies."

"Movies are movies are movies. Yeah, they're everything, but they're just movies. You've got something to say, and even if it takes longer to say it, it's still more important."

She wanted to cry. Really, deeply wanted to sob and say, _You understand me. Somebody understands me—finally._

The thing was, though, she was bad at speaking. She'd always been awful at verbally communicating with other people because she was afraid of her point not being clear. That reason alone was why she had picked up writing. It was easier to write the wrong thing and be able to erase it than to say the wrong thing and have it resonate in the listener's ear forever, ugly and misunderstood. And if there was one thing she would vow _not_ to be, it would be to be misunderstood.

So she wrote. Not immediately, but after the movie, after hitting up Floriano's, and after getting home and realizing that Embry was here to stay.

Her side of her right hand slid across the small page, getting as dirtied as the page with the rough, black ink. She had been writing a lot, and not in fiction, but more in how she felt directly. She hated the word _diary_ , but she had started one. Her diary was already looking a lot like the loose moments of her novel lying around. She'd have to remember which one was which, since the lines between the real and the fake were getting so blurred now.

When she thought she was finished for today's entry, she read over the smeared handwriting. Her hand hurt and she could hardly read it, but writing had never felt or looked so good.

 _The thing is, though, I think this is going to be alright. Embry's really something—something special. Real, real special. He's not just the kind of guy I want to read about. That would be too easy. No, no, Embry is something more. Something real, as well as special. He's the kind of guy I want to write about. And I don't know how much more important that is, but it is. Significantly._

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _I'll try to update Friday. Up next: Kim, Quil, and dark times._

 _Thank you,_

 _HS_


	38. XXXVIII

_**A/N:** I own no part of Twilight. School and college prep are kicking my ass. I'll be more consistent soon. Anyway, here is chapter 38. It's kind of a "bottle" chapter, catching up with Kim and a little with Quil. I was inspired a little by The Catcher in the Rye, but I think that's just by nature. Also, try to see if you can catch some throwbacks to chapter 8, if you're that interested._

 _Enjoy._

 **XXXVIII.**

 _In my dark times, i'll be going back to the streets_  
 _promising everything i do not mean_

* * *

"I'm just saying," Jared said through the phone, "it could work out."

"No, no, I believe you," Kim replied. "But I just don't see the point in having a long-distance relationship if we never see each other."

"Don't be like that."

She wasn't even _being_ a certain way; she was just stating the truth. "Okay," she said, giving up before they even begun. "I guess we'll make this work."

"We always do."

 _You keep telling yourself that._ "Yeah."

"Hey, I gotta move into the new apartment with my roommates. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Okay, bye." She hung up. _Why didn't he tell me he was getting an apartment? Why doesn't he tell me anything?_

Kim wasn't particularly happy to be "dating" Jared again, but she was bored. And she definitely wasn't going to complain to Leah about it. Based on that affectionate message Leah had sent her a little while ago, they weren't going to be seeing each other that often anymore. As much as Kim was glad to have that negativity away from her, she wished she had gotten the chance to say goodbye to her best friend of almost twenty years of her entire life. It would have really saved her from the heartbreak.

 _Try not to think about it, try not to think about it, try not to think about it._

Kim needed to get back in the dance studio. It had been a while, and cheer just wasn't the same. Cheer was more robotic, but Kim felt real now. She was real and didn't feel like cheer.

Youth Energy was a tiny studio out in the sticks, near Kim's house, but despite its location, it was actually a good place. Kim had been dancing there since she'd been seven years old, and it was where she had found her passion. She admitted that she had stopped going so often in high school because of cheer, but dance still helped her overall. It was a necessity. She could just lose her head, and at this point, she didn't want to find it again.

With her gym bag and high hopes, Kim set out for the studio. It wasn't far from her house, but she sort of wished it was. It would make the journey feel more perilous.

The studio looked the same—rather plain on the outside, but way nicer on the inside. The familiar lady at the front desk checked her into the walk-in hip-hop class after she paid. Kim slightly wished she could be in a select group again, but she didn't know if she had the drive for that anymore.

Kim was fairly early to the class, and while the studio itself looked the same, all of the faces were different. None of her old friends were there, even though it was a walk-in class. Usually anybody just stumbled into these classes, whether they were trying to kill some time or thought they needed the skills in case they had to audition for a music video, all because it was cheap. That was it. Some of Kim's best, best dance friends were some of the poorest, poorest kids she'd ever known, but what they had in common was dance and that was enough. It was crazy to Kim. It really was.

The instructor was also crazy to Kim. She looked harmless, but for a walk-in class, she was way too hard on everybody in there. It was a program aimed at younger people. Most of the people there were younger than Kim, and this _beast_ of an instructor was getting mad about everything. At first, it was a good thing that Kim was in the back, keeping up fairly well for someone who hadn't danced in a while, but then she was just getting annoyed.

Kim watched the instructor, this pseudo-diva with the highest voice known to man and a gap as big as Alaska between her thighs, prance and march around in front of the mirror. Kim didn't know her name or her background or anything about her besides the fact that she was a fake. That was evident.

Without a word, Kim packed her bag and departed just as sporadically as she had arrived.

* * *

She entered her house ten minutes later with enough junk food to feed a small village. She decided she wasn't as independent as she frequently pretended to be, and she wanted to interact somebody—anybody—but she didn't want to call Jared. He'd never have the time. She wasn't close enough with Bella despite their matching tattoos. Emily was probably too busy writing or drinking or both, like the starved poet she was, and Kim didn't want to interrupt that. It was too deep for her, anyway. Quil was probably sleeping or something. Oh, and Leah? Forget Leah.

Kim realized she had no friends. Not one.

She found herself literally scrolling through her contacts. They were just the aforementioned people and some of her followers from high school. She wasn't that into cheer anymore. Or the people. Except for Ashley Newton.

The Coca-Cola, Doritos, and Snickers sat still in her mouth when Kim thought of Ashley Newton. She hadn't seen her since graduation and hadn't actually hung out with her since senior Prom, where they'd decided to stop worrying and start kissing. It had been brief, more of a spur-of-the-moment thing than an oh-my-god-I-think-I-love-you thing. Kim still liked to think about it, though. It had been real, and she needed that more than anything now: real things, real people. The only thing she was getting was real fat as she lay in her bed over the mint-colored sheets, staring at the full-length dancer's mirror along the wall, thinking of Ashley's touch.

Ashley had felt exactly like exactly what Kim had expected. Soft, warm (not just because of the ecstasy she had taken prior to going to Prom), and real. She had looked as real as ever. The girl ( _God bless that girl_ ) stayed true to herself, always; she had worn her damn combat boots that night. She would have worn her denim jacket, too, if her mother hadn't stopped her. It was just about perfect, though. Even better: her brother, Mike, hadn't gone because his date had bailed on him. At least, that was what Ashley had told Kim. She could still hear the hesitation in Ashley's voice. The conversation felt like it was only a week ago instead of a year.

Kim stared at Ashley's cell phone number. It wasn't the same number from senior year—that was a given. Ashley had always been accidentally sitting on her phone or dropping it in the toilet, and she had always been getting a new number and phone because of that. Kim still had Karen Newton's number since she had been a cheer parent (and therefore, Kim's second mother) and all, but if she called, what would she say? _I think I still love your daughter even though it's been over a year since I've even seen her_?

So Kim didn't do anything about Ashley Newton. She hoped she was thinking of her. Kim hoped that Ashley was finally in California, with the other special people like her, getting really tan and really high without any real worries. She hoped Ashley was far away from Mike and his ignorance. Most importantly, she hoped that whenever Mike looked in the mirror or rubbed his face, he felt the scars, thought of Kim, and grew cold. She wanted that the most.

* * *

It was Kim's last carefree summer, the last summer where anything could happen. She was just about ready for college, but she wasn't ready to let the summer go. She had done it all—been places, been arrested, burned bridges, gotten another tattoo, all of that—but she still felt stuck. Was this how sober, okay people felt all the time? The normalcy even hurt to think about.

That evening, while her parents were at a dinner she wasn't even invited to, Kim decided there was a hole in her head. And, of course, the only way to fill it would be with drugs. She hadn't done Molly in a while. She missed it like an old friend, but it was so far from her reach. She didn't have Jared as a supplier anymore, and the last time she'd done it had been just prior to her arrest. Kim and Bella had been a wild, hot mess that day—how had they not known that snorting Molly from a stranger's dick was illegal?

Getting high at home was different, though. And besides, there wasn't a penis anywhere near Kim.

She called Quil, and she wondered if he knew that she only called him when she needed a hit of something. She wondered if he was still on his high horse, still thinking that selling drugs made him cool. He couldn't have been at that self-loathing stage yet since he was still selling weed, but what did Kim know? Quil could be a mess right now. She realized that when he picked up neither his burner phone nor his home phone. Of course, he could have been somewhere besides home, but if anybody didn't have a life, it was him. Suddenly, Kim didn't feel so bad.

If she wasn't so damn lonely, she would have gotten over the urge and watched some TV instead, but Kim felt insanely quiet. She hadn't conversed with anybody except her thoughts, and the little lady in her head needed to go on break; she was getting tired.

As she slipped on some shoes, Kim couldn't abstain from looking at herself in the mirror. If Jared were to take a ferry and a couple buses from Seattle to Forks tomorrow, he wouldn't think the trip was worth it. She wasn't his dream image anymore. She wasn't Miss America; she wasn't anything like her. She was what he would call unruly since she wore her hair in its natural, curly state. She was what he would call lazy since she had gained some weight, but not a lot, since the end of high school and the sports that had accompanied it. She was what he would call rebellious since she didn't give a fuck about his rules and had yet another tattoo and was getting up considerably late at night in order to get high.

 _Fuck you, man,_ she thought.

Kim drove herself out to La Push, out to the so-called "hood" of Clallam County, out to the heart of the badlands, out to the _whatever the fuck_ , in search of Quil and some (hopefully cheap) entertainment. Quil wasn't a bad guy to be around when he was sober, and he was a damn riot when he was high. She thought of that one night they had hung out with Jared in his house, during sophomore year. It had been pretty fun before Quil's mom had busted them and sent Quil to Neah Bay the next morning in order to get him clean. Things hadn't really been the same after that. Kim didn't mind change as much as other people, but she didn't know how to feel about it, either.

She parked her black Ford along the curb next to Quil's house and made her way around the back of it to enter through the basement, where he frequented the most these days.

She put in the childhood code (knocking seven times) and waited. She got no response. She decided she could either keep knocking like an idiot or just enter the house, so she picked the latter.

She immediately wished she hadn't entered the house.

Quil was on the floor, in the darkest corner of the basement, rocking himself. Tears ran down his face, but he was also scratching at himself—at his arms, his face, all over. He was bugging out and Kim didn't know what to do. Somewhere in his expression, he was six years old again and had fallen down from the playground. It wasn't that bad, but he'd cried and cried and cried. Kim wished things could be that simple now.

She slowly approached him, but he backed up as if he didn't recognize her. She tried to touch him, to calm him down, but he moved away.

"She's gone," he said. "She's all gone."

"Who?" Kim asked gently. "Claire? Quil, who's gone? Is it Claire?"

"Three years isn't even that much," he cried. "It's just three years. It's just three fucking years. She's gone because three years is too much for her."

Claire had just turned sixteen and decided that she didn't want to be with Quil anymore, which was the right choice. Kim commended her, but she couldn't say that to Quil's face. Especially now.

So she ignored what was right and wrong and held him. He let her this time. She supposed that if his world was going to crash down, she might as well help pick up the pieces while she was there.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thank you,_

 _HS_


	39. XXXIX

_**A/N:** I own no part of Twilight. _

_BRIEF RECAP: Embry and Seth have been trying to locate Embry's father for a while now. Sam and Emily are together except they're not. Emily and Embry are actually together._

 _Of course, enjoy._

 **XXXIX.**

 _don't take it back, i'll just deny_  
 _this constant noise all the time_

* * *

"Joshua Uley," Embry said like he was really thinking about the name. "Joshua _Uley._ "

Seth leaned back in his computer chair and placed his hands behind his head. "Yeah. I know what you're thinking."

"Me and Sam," Embry replied, "we're cousins _._ "

"Okay, well, maybe not _that_. I was thinking—"

"We've gotta be cousins. It would make the most sense. I mean, the guy's last name is Uley."

"No, Embry, listen." Seth's voice was serious. "Everybody here's cousins. I think you and Sam are, well..."

Embry's voice became lower, quieter. "Brothers."

Seth nodded. "But that's just a theory. A good one, but still a theory. And I've found this guy's address and everything. Have you ever been to Everett? It's just north of Seattle."

"Yeah, but we can't come busting into some guy's house," Embry replied. "Even if he is my dad."

"That's the thing: he's your dad. Ain't that your right? It's especially Sam's, since the guy just up and left him like that."

Embry thought on that for a moment. "Okay," he decided. "But Sam has to come with us."

Seth nodded, and then he was silent for a while. He blinked when he looked up at Embry. "Do you have money for gas? I know for a fact that Sam's gonna ask."

* * *

South Everett was the rich man's Forks. Forks with a slight upgrade but even worse poverty problems and way more McDonald's locations.

Seth had never seen much out of the badlands. He'd only known open spaces and the ocean and trees, trees, trees everywhere. Out in the country, there wasn't much. Being in Everett was kind of excessive. That was when Seth realized that he and Sam and Embry and everyone out in the badlands were disconnected. When the biggest, greatest, most life-changing things happened to them, life outside of their friendships and relationships and feelings continued, unbothered. Life went on, and on, and on, and on.

For instance, there was this bum. Of course, there were plenty of bums in South Everett, especially around the apartment complex that the boys were headed to. That bum had probably lived in that same corner for months. He was a regular. Seth, Embry, and Sam walked past him, ignoring him, talking among themselves to fill the empty void. They tried to cause some noise, to act like all of this was normal. The bum watched them. He watched them knock on the estranged Joshua Uley's front door. He watched it all.

The boys fell silent, and it seemed to take an eternity for Joshua to even answer. When the white door swung open, Sam hardly recognized the tall man with eyes that matched his. They caught each other's glance first. Joshua wore a t-shirt and jeans, and Sam thought he looked funny that way. Sam had imagined him as so many things—a fireman, a cop, a _hero_ despite him leaving—but this was it.

Then Embry met eyes with Joshua, his father. He and Sam and Embry all had the exact same eyes. It should have only been more evident.

Embry's mouth slightly hung open.

"Dad?"

Except it wasn't Embry's voice.

A little boy who had to be about four years old appeared from behind Joshua, hanging on to his legs and looking up at the three big guys at the front door. The kid had the same eyes, too.

"Josh?" a feminine voice called. "Who's at the door?"

And then a woman appeared from behind Joshua, too, like something out of a movie. She was almost conventionally pretty with skin the color of honey and dark brown hair in loose girls. She held a sleeping child in her arms, and she was so pregnant she looked like she was going to explode in any given moment.

"Oh, who's this?" she asked Joshua, looking at Sam, Embry, and Seth with a polite yet confused smile.

Sam just shook his head and turned around like he expected it to happen. Sam was like that—always pessimistic so in the case that things didn't work out for him, he wouldn't be disappointed. (He never was.) Seth followed him. And Embry kept his eyes on Joshua's, locking him into his memory for the first and last time, before turning around and heading towards Sam's truck.

Embry didn't know how to feel about it besides fucked over. Joshua wasn't living big now. He'd never been, back when he had been messing around with Sam's mom and Embry's mom, but he certainly wasn't now. Hell, the guy lived in an apartment in South Everett with a bum just a couple doors down. But Joshua didn't have to live big to be happy—that much was clear. What got to Embry the most was the fact that Joshua was trying _now_. Sam and him and probably a whole bunch of other guys out there were all doing the same thing, just wondering if they even had a dad, while Joshua was out here living. Just living. Sam and Embry had been the test trials, the designated fuck-ups. But now that they were out of the picture, Joshua was able to live with his own wife and his own kids. It was just like the damn movies and Embry hated himself for it. He was smart and he knew it, but he had never felt so stupid.

And Joshua wouldn't care. He just wouldn't. He'd shut the door and go back to kissing his real wife and play with his real son.

It had all played out like a silent film, Seth realized as the events immediately started to toss and turn in his head. On the way to the truck, he saw the bum. That homeless guy had seen it all, and life continued just the same. What had happened didn't matter. Not at all.

Letting South Everett slip from his view and his mind, Seth became disconnected once again, but he wondered if he had ever been connected in the first place.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I know. I know. I KNOW. I'm actual trash. I should have made time. But I promise to stop making crazy promises. I promise. (Did you know this story was originally going to conclude on February 19? Lmao.) I'll keep it rolling, no matter how slow it goes. I'm also really excited to share the rest with you guys._

 _If you've waited all this time, thank you. And if you haven't, thanks anyway._

 _HS_


	40. XL

_**A/N:** And I'm back. I wanna make these updates more regular, but who knows? Here's another short, Emily-centric transition chapter with a throwback to chapter 16. The next chapter moves more forward._

 _Enjoy._

 **XL.**

 _there ain't nothing here for me anymore_  
 _but i don't wanna be alone_

* * *

Emily had never been religious, but by the end of that peculiar, out-of-body summer, she knew that she had found God. The fact that she had been given so many chances was a miracle by itself.

Looking back on her summer, Emily decided that she had taken enough chances for a lifetime. She'd left her little hidey-hole and felt the sun. She'd gone places she'd never thought she'd go before. She'd seen people she'd always thought she would never be able to see. She'd gotten arrested. And after all of that, after all of the stress, she had come out almost unscathed.

She'd found God.

And to take another chance, Emily decided to have sex with Embry at the end of that summer. It was the day after he had found his father (and he never told her anything about it, too) so he wasn't in the right mindset. Neither was she. She didn't know why she agreed to it but she didn't feel bad about it and she couldn't help it. She couldn't. And afterward, she did two things.

First, she prayed for the first time in her life. She prayed she wasn't pregnant, and she prayed that she and Embry would be okay regardless. Yeah, he was kind of weird now, but so was she and she supposed that didn't matter. But she prayed hard—she actually cried while doing it.

Second, she took a pregnancy test. That part was just as religious as the praying part. The action came about two-and-a-half weeks and two hundred short conversations with Embry later. Emily didn't want to say anything to make things even more weird between them, so she chose to say nothing at all. And it killed Embry because he didn't know what she was being so silent about.

After she took a pregnancy test (and then another one, and another one just to make sure), she called up Embry and said she was going to pick him up. They drove to Floriano's without exchanging a word.

At their booth, the dead air hung between them. Emily stared at Embry's nice, attractive face. He looked tired, but in a good way, and he wore his glasses, which made him look even better. He stared back at her. Her black roots were starting to grow in, but they looked good against the mahogany of her long hair.

They finally spoke at the same time, breaking the silence.

"Sam and I have the same dad."

"I'm not pregnant."

Embry's eyes widened. "Oh!" he said. "That's great. That's really great."

Emily's eyebrows furrowed. "I mean, yeah, I guess, but your thing is way more important. How do you know?"

"We found him a couple weeks ago in this one town called Everett. He just opened the front door and out popped a pregnant wife and two kids. The works. We just left after that."

"Wait, who's _we_?"

"Me and Seth and Sam."

Emily grew cold. "Sam went with you?"

Embry nodded. "It's _his_ dad."

"But it's yours, too."

"I know, Em, I know. It was just really weird." His hand touched hers on the table for a brief moment before she could move it. She wasn't too affectionate and neither was he. He promptly moved his hand away when she wouldn't react.

"I'm sorry for not telling you sooner," he told her.

"That would have been nice," she said somberly. "I just feel like a massive ho now."

He didn't even ask why. He just stared at her.

"But I guess that's my fault."

He couldn't be offended; she wasn't even being sarcastic. All he did was put his hand on hers again. She took it back and got up from the table. She calmly went to her car and drove home. He knew where the nearest bus stop was.

* * *

Emily started to day-drink and evening-pray after that. Embry kept calling her, but she didn't answer. She was too ashamed. She'd slept with a man and his _brother._ She hadn't slept with Sam in about a year since she had been completely convinced that her vagina was cursed, but it was the same thing. Maybe she wouldn't have wanted to have sex with Embry if she had known that he and Sam were brothers.

It was the first night of September, and Emily herself poured a drink. She was usually her best at writing when she was drunk despite Bella's protests, but her mind was mostly empty tonight. All she could think about was this time almost a year ago in Room 93, outside the badlands, and she wondered if Sam was out there. He came home every now and then, but she began to worry.

He knew she was drinking a lot again. Of course, he did. And of course, he didn't want to hurt her again. The shards of glass were just as familiar to him as they were to her even if he hadn't been the one receiving them.

Emily lost focus and accidentally let her glass fall to the wooden floor, where it shattered into a hundred tiny pieces.

Maybe God wasn't so real after all.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _Chapter 41 is more refreshing, and chapter 42 is one of the most important of the story, in my humble author's opinion. Can't wait to share._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	41. XLI

**Part Four**

 **altschmerz** : weariness with the same old issues that you've always had – the same boring flaws and anxieties that you've been gnawing on for years.

* * *

 **XLI.**

 _while you are away, my heart comes undone_

* * *

Paul ran his fingers through Leah's hair, which was an action she had grown accustomed to. "Move in with me," he said.

Leah giggled. "Why?"

He pouted. "'Cause I want you to."

"You're silly."

"You have all your stuff here, anyway. It won't be that much of a change."

Leah and Paul sat in their bed in his old house. She peered around the messy bedroom. Moving in with him really wouldn't be a massive change to her life; he was right. But something continued to bother her.

"We're broke," she said.

"We have jobs."

It was the middle of September now, and she had just gotten a job as a waitress at Floriano's, the Italian restaurant in Port Angeles. He still worked at the convenience store on the rez with some odd jobs in between. Life was domestic—and normal. Leah enjoyed that feeling after a long, wild summer of peculiarities.

"Don't act like that means anything," Leah replied. "We're literally so fucking broke."

He ran his hands down her back, gently scratching. He knew she liked that; it felt good.

"So let's say we have money," he said. "What's your excuse now?"

"We'd have to get our own place first," she decided.

"And what's wrong with where we're at right now?"

"It's down the street from my house, Paul," she said, giving him a look. "There's no point in me moving in if we're, like, two feet from my mom. And as much as I love sitting on your face, I can't keep doing it in your childhood home. It just feels wrong."

He laughed and fell back onto the bed, his eyes closed. "You're too damn much, Lee."

"I get that a lot," she said. Then she laid down next to him. "Let's just not worry about it right now."

When he really wanted something, he became adamant on getting it. Maybe it was the Aries in him. "Why?" he asked.

"'Cause I'm tired," she said. "And I wanna take a nap. Can you turn off the movie, babe?" The TV screen had gone dim in the last couple of minutes. They had been watching _Selena_ for the millionth time on VHS.

He turned the TV off with the remote, but the VCR still whirred as background noise. "All you ever wanna do is take a nap," he told her.

"I'm always tired. And besides—I've got school."

Paul groaned. "You know I support all your goals and dreams, Lee, but—"

"I know. You're bad at school. I mean, not all of us are good at it."

"Yeah, yeah," he replied, "but we've only got a couple days to keep at this."

"Oh, please." Leah covered her eyes with the back of her hands and arched her back, stretching. She inhaled and exhaled deeply.

"I'm not even going away," she said. "It's fucking community college. I literally get to come home to you almost every night."

"Lee, I'm not stupid," Paul said. "I know all that."

"Then quit acting like it's the end of the world." She uncovered her eyes. "And you never know—it might be a little better for us."

A tiny, tiny fragment of stress appeared in his mind; Leah saw it,

"Not like that," she said. "It'll just get my head out of the clouds." She brought her mouth up to kiss him softly on the lips.

"And some time to stop being sore," she added with a devilish smile.

"Want me to kiss it better, baby?" he asked, putting his fingers back into her hair.

She nodded. "Do what you gotta do."

And Paul already knew—he had won Leah over by proving that he wanted her for real, and now there was no hesitation or deception. He didn't play games because he didn't want to be a shitty person towards her anymore. And the best thing about all of it was that Leah, who required solid proof of authenticity from anyone she liked, believed him.

She finally believed him.

* * *

As Leah stood at the bus stop in La Push, impatiently waiting for a giant piece of metal to come chugging over, she decided she hated sunny days. They were inappropriate. Her worst times were always accompanied by a bright, sunny day, like a sick joke.

She also really wished she had made some sort of effort to get her driver's license. She knew _how_ to drive like everyone else around here, but she shouldn't have slept on getting a license. When she had been sixteen, she had been so determined to go to college somewhere far away that she had never thought she'd need a car. And when she had been eighteen, she had been so hung up on the fact that she wasn't going to college at all. So here she was at age twenty, broke and license-less and car-less and hopeless. She just might even skip the first day of classes.

Then a little black Ford Fusion came along. Leah knew that Fusion like an old friend. She'd been there when the driver had picked it out; hell, it was Leah's _idea_ to get that car. She had been with the driver of the car before the driver had even gotten her license. Leah had even driven that car once or twice before almost crashing. The car was damn near home.

She just wished the driver would decide to be mean and keep on driving.

Kim stopped in the lane and rolled down her window. "Where's your ride, girl?" she called.

Leah squinted her eyes against the rare September sun. "Late."

"Boyfriend?"

"No, the bus."

"Being late to the first day of class is a bad look."

Leah shrugged. "Taking a gap year only to go on to community college is a bad look."

"Get in."

Leah wasn't angry with Kim anymore, but she certainly didn't forget how she'd thrown her under the bus—twice. "What? No."

"Lee, you're going to school today," Kim said sternly. "So get in the car."

"Get outta here. I'll just wait for the bus."

As much as Kim knew how hated she was, she did miss Leah—somewhat. A larger part of her was still angry, and she considered leaving her there in all her bitterness, but Kim couldn't. She was too damn nice of a person.

"Lee, c'mon."

Leah gave in and hopped into the passenger seat. She settled in and it really did feel like home. She didn't forgive Kim, though.

"So who's all starting school today?" Leah asked awkwardly as Kim headed towards Port Angeles. It had been a while since she had even thought of Kim; it was hard to talk to her now.

"Uh, let's see," Kim began. "Bella and Jacob are carpooling."

"They're together _again?_ "

"Yeah, I don't know about that. The girl's bored, I guess. I haven't talked to her in a while."

A part of Leah was relieved to hear that. "Who else?" she asked.

"There's Sam," Kim continued. "I think he's going alone, but he's been going there, anyway. Emily and Embry are doing the online school thing, which makes a lot of sense. And then there's us."

"No Quil?"

Kim side-eyed Leah. "Not in a million years."

Leah snickered. "I should have known that."

The rest of the car ride was awkward. Kim turned up the radio, a station of Top 40 hits, and Leah didn't recognize a good number of the songs. Kim, however, tapped her fingers along the steering wheel to every single track that played. It was interesting to watch.

When they arrived at the school, they had nothing to say to each other. They knew where their classes were; they knew where they were supposed to be.

They just didn't know how to apologize. Leah was convinced it was a pride issue.

* * *

Emily's eyes bored into her computer screen. She was a hermit, sure, but maybe she needed the reality of a normal classroom. Whatever she was doing online wasn't working out very well. She'd have to transfer at the end of the semester—or quarter, if she was really suffering.

Then again, maybe she shouldn't have been drinking while attending school. _Look at you_ , she thought to herself. _Drinking at 11am on a Monday. New record._

In actuality, she was dying. She truly felt like she was dying. She hadn't talked to Embry since the last time, when they had exchanged news. As far as she knew, he was still at Floriano's, trying to figure out what had just happened. She missed him—it was hard to go from seeing somebody nearly every day to not seeing them at all.

The best and worst thing she'd done that day was call him.

"Hey," she said as soon as he answered, trying to keep it all together. "Can you come over real quick?"

"Y-yeah," he stammered. "Is there an issue?"

"I think there's something going on with my computer."

"I'll be over in five."

He was over in three, and she admitted to lying to him about the computer.

"Oh, man, Em," he said. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," she said as they sat down on the living room couch. "School's just killing me right now. I can't focus."

"You smell like vodka," he told her. "There's no wonder." His eyes wandered over to the computer desk, and there he saw the clear glass bottle. He got up and retrieved it, toying with it in his hands. The bottle was halfway empty and relatively new.

"Chill out," she said slowly, clearly a little tipsy, but not making any effort to get up.

He hid the bottle away in a cabinet under the kitchen sink. Then he sat down across from her on the couch. He cupped his chin in his hands. "Em," he began.

She blinked, her face blank. "Yeah?"

"Can you tell me something?"

"Of course."

"Why?" was all that he asked her.

She took a second, trying to gather her thoughts. Then she sighed.

"Let me tell you about it."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Sorry for bringing on another short transition chapter, but I've got it all planned out. Up next: Jacob x Bella, a conversation between Jacob and Paul (have I done this yet in this story? I don't think so), and revelations._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	42. XLII

_**A/N:**_ _Can I just give a quick shoutout to those who continue to read this story? You guys are the best and I love you. So this chapter is interesting for me. I realized I labeled this story as "Leah, Jacob, Bella, Paul," but we don't get enough of the last guy. I mean, we've had Bella/Jacob interactions, plenty of Leah/Bella interactions, Leah/Paul of course, and Leah-talking-about-Jacob in typical Leah manner, but never much on Jacob and Paul. (And there's Bella-Paul interaction later, naturally.) I've planned this chapter for a while now, but I'm glad it's finally materialized. (And if you see this chapter mirror chapter 24, thanks. I did that on purpose.) So here is chapter 42._

 _So this chapter is interesting for me. I realized I labeled this story as "Leah, Jacob, Bella, Paul," but we don't get enough of the last guy. I mean, we've had Bella/Jacob interactions, plenty of Leah/Bella interactions, Leah/Paul of course, and Leah-talking-about-Jacob in typical Leah manner, but never much on Jacob and Paul. (And there's Bella-Paul interaction later, naturally.) I've planned this chapter for a while now, but I'm glad it's finally materialized. (And if you see this chapter mirror chapter 24, thanks. I did that on purpose.) So here is chapter 42._

 _I don't own Twilight. Obvs._

 _Enjoy._

 **XLII.**

 _are you deranged like me? are you strange like me?  
_ _lighting matches just to swallow up the flame like me?  
_ _do you call yourself a fucking hurricane like me?  
_ _pointing fingers 'cause you'll never take the blame like me?_

* * *

 _New year_ , Bella thought to herself, _new me._

So it wasn't really the new year, but it was two weeks after Bella's twentieth birthday, and a Friday. It was a new year for adulthood. Maturity. _Grown up shit_ was the way she put it mentally.

That Friday was her last day at the Newtons' store—for good. She'd put in her two weeks on her birthday as a gift to herself because as much as she liked _not_ doing any work and getting paid for it, that wasn't how life really worked itself out and she found herself more and more suicidal there as the days went by. Mike Newton didn't even work there anymore, and he was the last person that she'd known. Replacing him were a gang of high school juniors—it made Bella feel older than ever, and she would have preferred to die than to take the open position of part-time manager.

So she ran instead. It was kind of her talent. Except she ran to a good place—she ran into another job at a daycare, of all job opportunities, where she had no room to be flaky. It was such an unexpected move that Jacob didn't believe her when she first told him.

It was a Sunday morning and it truly felt _easy_. They were walking along First Beach (which was even prettier when she was sober), taking in the very last breaths of summer as they were about to ease into their third week of college and her first day at a new job.

"I start at my new job tomorrow," she told him. They walked close, hand-in-hand. It was as easy as breathing despite everything in the past.

"You got tired of selling tents and backpacks?"

"Fuck all _that_ ," she replied.

"Damn. I was gonna miss having camping trips with you, since you're such an expert."

Bella immediately grew red and looked up at him. For some reason, she had been hoping that he would move past that. She didn't regret it or anything since it had been a fun time, but it was surprising how he brought up their first time just like that. They'd switched places; he was bold now, and she remained modest.

He started laughing. "Chill, Bells."

"Ha, ha," she said dryly. "You're so funny, Jake."

"Aw," he said. "I had fun that time."

"Me, too."

"So where's your new job?"

"Sunshine Childcare. It's in Forks."

"Listen, you're _way_ too smart to come up with something that dumb."

"No, like, I really do have a job there now. I start tomorrow, actually."

" _Childcare?_ " he asked. "Really?"

"What's not to believe?" she replied.

"One, you hate kids. And—"

"That is so not true," she interrupted.

"Almost every time you see one crying in public, you just go, 'Gross.'"

"Okay, well, _that_ part is true," she admitted.

"And two," he continued, "you curse like a sailor."

"Oh, fuck off," she said, pushing him in the arm.

"You know you can't beat up on those little kids like you beat up on me, right?" he asked.

"Then that's why I have you for practice." She smiled up at him with the same devilish grin that reminded him of trouble. That smile also reminded him of summer and it felt like a million bucks.

That was where he was all torn up.

He _knew_ he shouldn't treat her the same way that he had treated her before. He _knew_ she didn't want to be fake or pretend. And he knew more than _anything_ that he had to see her as a real person. Why was that the hardest part?

Oh, right. He was a fucking idiot.

So Bella smiled at him with that look of trouble, and he didn't know how to see her as a human being, a companion, rather than a thing that he was used to having sex with. And he just smiled back.

This was her walking the sidewalks and smelling the roses and breathing the air. This was her living and he loved it. He still loved it.

 _I am so screwed,_ he thought.

* * *

From the get-go at Sunshine Childcare, Bella knew that working there would be a major adjustment. For one thing, she had to work from ten to six, three days a week since she had classes on two days. And on those days, she did closing half shifts. Working at the Newtons had been nonchalant and with varying shifts. But this new job was one for a true Adult. She knew that especially because she had to cover up the tattoo she had gotten in Venice with Kim.

And even besides the shifts and dress code, Bella knew that daycares, in general, were something else. She had read the employee manual. It had specific rules that she would never find anywhere else. The one that struck out the most to her was that employees were not allowed to tell parents if their kid took their first steps or said their first words. Bella understood _why_ , but it was still strange.

Sunshine was a special place, that was for sure. Upon entering the building, she regretted taking the job immediately. She could hear the children laughing and playing. She didn't understand how they had so much energy when it was literally ten in the morning.

A semi-familiar unnatural blonde with a real smile greeted Bella near the front door. "I take it that you're Bella?" she asked, sticking her hand out.

Bella shook her hand firmly. "Yeah," she said, feigning an air of excitement.

"I'm Lauren. I think I saw you at your orientation for a second, but I was busy."

Bella suddenly remembered seeing Lauren cleaning up little kid vomit in the library area just the other day at orientation. That was why she was so familiar.

"Oh, yeah," Bella replied.

Lauren nodded towards the main area. "Let's get started."

* * *

The next morning, Bella called Jacob. She didn't know, but she felt herself falling back into him. She somehow felt that she deserved to talk to him again because she was taking better care of herself these days, but some part of her still felt strange and slightly off-kilter. She knew he was the same way. And what could she say? He liked her insane. So she couldn't really blame herself. She was being selfish and she didn't care.

Still, she hoped he liked her enough to pick up the phone. She wasn't that surprised when he did.

"Hey," he said brightly.

"Hey."

"You sound awful," he said bluntly.

Her nose was slightly stuffed up. She could tell she was catching a cold. "Already?" she asked. "Ugh. I spend one day with those snotty little kids and I get sick."

He chuckled. "Good first day?"

"Despite the fact that I've probably been sneezed on about twelve times, yeah. It's not bad." She paused. "I would have called you last night but when I got home, I had dinner and dropped asleep."

"It's okay," he said, slightly freaking out over the fact that she had wanted to call him last night. "Are they good kids, though?"

"I don't know," she replied. She looked through the blinds of her window. It was an overcast day and summer had slipped between her fingers. "They're mostly just problem kids. Like, the daycare is pretty cheap compared to others so a lot of poorer families around here go to it. And the kids have attitude problems and shit like that. They're either aggressive little shits or really quiet. A lot of them don't get meals at home, too."

"Damn. That's a lot to deal with."

"Yeah. And I know I hate kids and all, but I just feel… bad, you know?"

"Why? They're not your problem."

"I guess they're not," she agreed, "except they sort of are."

"It'll get better, Bells," he said. "Need me to bring you some soup?"

She laughed softly. "Don't worry about it."

"Are you still going to school today?"

"Yeah, I guess," she said. "Are you coming to get me?"

"Definitely."

"Thanks, Jake."

"No problem, Bells."

"Love you."

"Love you, too."

* * *

Bella had worked three full shifts at the daycare before she decided she was losing whatever edge she had. She was still physically sick from all the kids, but she couldn't help but think back on nicer days. There was still a part of her who longed for the trouble of summer. Somewhere deep down, that girl who had shown up to the beach with razor blades and a lock in a sock was still thriving. It was scary, but Bella supposed she could live with it.

Driving home from work on Thursday, Bella passed by a couple of old, rusty motorcycles with a cardboard sign next to them that said, _Free_. She had never U-turned so fast to go retrieve those motorcycles.

She didn't even call Jacob to let him know she was coming, so when he heard the iconic rumbling of her pickup truck, he didn't know what to expect, naturally.

He met her outside when she pulled up, and he wondered what was underneath the tarp covering the bed of her truck.

"Jacob," she began once she got out of her truck, "what do you know about motorcycles?"

He shrugged. "A little. Embry and I started fixing up a dirt bike a while ago but we never finished. Why?"

"Well..." She pursed her lips. "I recently acquired a couple of bikes, and they're not in the greatest condition. I was wondering if you could get them running?"

"Cool," he said easily. "We can give it a try."

"The thing is," she explained as a warning, "Charlie doesn't approve of motorcycles. If he ever found out about this, he'd… he'd..." She struggled to find the right words. "He'd bust a nut."

Jacob exploded with laughter. It took him a little while to calm down, and she couldn't help but laugh with him. His reaction had been funnier than her choice of words.

"Don't worry about me telling my dad or Charlie," he said once he composed himself. "Just don't _ever_ say that again."

"Understood. Oh, and I'll pay you."

"Please, Bella. It's no big deal."

"Then how about a trade?" she offered.

"Such as?"

"You can have the other bike, but you have to teach me how to build and ride it."

"Fair enough. But do you mind if I ask something?"

"Go ahead," she said.

"Why do you care what Charlie thinks? You're twenty."

"Jake, you sound so white right now," she groaned. "He's the chief of police. His house, his rules."

"He literally threatened to have you arrested for almost killing Leah at the beach," he reminded her.

"I'm an adult in the eyes of the law, I guess," she said, "but not in the eyes of a dad. I don't know. Just don't say anything, though."

"Need me to pinky promise, then?" His tone was slightly teasing. He stuck out his pinky.

She hooked hers onto his and leaned in close. "Good boy," she said.

They stayed locked in like that for a moment. He pressed his forehead onto hers, and she shut her eyes.

"I don't know why," he whispered, "but I still miss you, Bells."

"Jake, trust me," she replied. "I feel the same way."

The cool air blew around them, but they remained warm. Maybe that was just the way things were supposed to be.

With her eyes still closed, she brought her lips up to kiss him. It was timid but timeless.

"Wait a minute," he whispered. "Do you still want me to call you Blue?"

She shook her head. "I don't wanna be Blue anymore."

"Okay."

In that moment, Jacob knew that Bella was truly perfect for him.

* * *

That autumn, Jacob and Bella's weekends were solely dedicated to motorcycles and each other. It hadn't taken them long to fall back into their old ways, except they had a more sober and less obsessive approach to it. They now had lives outside of each other and a bed. The closeness with a good amount of space was perfect.

Despite the space, though, Jacob didn't really spend time around anyone else. He still worked on the reservation, this time in a souvenir shop, but the rest of his time consisted of _Bella, Bella, Bella_ , just the way he liked it. He never really acknowledged it as a problem until Paul did.

Paul and Jacob weren't _best_ friends _._ They were as close as any other two guys who had grown up together on the rez. They weren't like Embry and Seth or Quil and Kim; they existed around each other, but not _with_ each other. Jacob didn't mind, though. Paul was flighty and annoying and he just _loved_ Leah, which meant he had to be crazy.

In early October, it was Paul who had called Jacob and told him to meet him at the beach. Jake didn't know if they were going to fight or anything, but then he realized they weren't Bella and Leah. Not at all. For one thing, while they weren't close, they could somewhat stand to be together.

"Haven't seen you in a while," Paul said when they met up. He leaned against a tree casually.

"Yeah, it's good to see you, bro," Jacob replied. "What's up?"

"Nothin'. I was just wondering if you were alive."

"Well, here I am. Living. Breathing."

"We all missed ya at the bonfire the other night."

"Oh, really?" Jacob hadn't even been invited. "I'm just now getting over a cold." That part was actually true; he'd caught the cold from Bella.

"Yeah, that's what Bella said, too," Paul said.

"So that's what you're getting at?" Jacob asked.

"Kinda, yeah."

"Well, what do you wanna know?" His voice was edging on defensive. "Or what does _Leah_ wanna know?"

"Hey, don't be so touchy, now," Paul said. "And leave Leah out of this."

"Then what is it? Because me and Bella haven't thought of you _or_ Leah in… oh, I don't know, a month? So I don't see why you care about us now."

"It's just weird." Paul's voice was nonchalant. "I mean, it came out of nowhere."

"We were together just before she went with Leah and the rest of them to Seaside."

" _Seaside?_ " Paul asked with an incredulous look. "That's what she told you?"

Jacob tried not to show how confused he really was. "Yeah, that's what she told me."

"Damn, that's—you know what, never mind." Paul just laughed.

"Get to your point, Paul," Jacob said.

"You know what you are, Jake?" Paul finally began. "Do you know what kind of motherfucker you are?"

Jake watched him light a cigarette. Paul really thought that shit made him look cool. He also thought judging everybody else without looking at himself made him look cool, too.

"What?" Jacob asked. "What the fuck am I today?"

Paul took a long drag of his cigarette. He always thought that closing his eyes on the first drag made him look deep and alluring; it really made him look desperate. He was a poser, and everyone could only tolerate it for so long. Jacob knew Leah wasn't exactly stupid, but he couldn't see what she saw in Paul. The guy was such a fake. And a shark, too. He was just like the rest of them—he came swimming the second there was a hint of any blood.

"You're too still," Paul told Jacob. "It makes me sick. You're fuckin' static, man. You're dating that white girl to make you feel something when you're really just sitting there stuck in your own personal hell, not changing at all. You don't try to change, and you never want to."

Jacob couldn't believe he was hearing this shit with his own two ears. "Well, who says I wanna change?" he challenged.

"You sound stupid as hell," Paul said. "Everybody changes whether they like it or not—it's what we do. It's natural. You're just weak. You're pathetic. And Bella doesn't see it now, but she's going to. I can guarantee that. She's not going to like your problems because you're a 'broken soul' or whatever, you know that? You're not helping her at all, and you're sure as hell not saving her, because—trust me—she's not the kind of girl you can save."

"Leah's _really_ got you on some shit!" Jacob exclaimed. "So her pussy's a prophet now? 'Cause you don't know shit. You make it sound like you know Bella like I do. You make it sound like you've fucked her as many times as I have."

Paul blew smoke rings into the air. "You're such a goddamn _savage,_ Jacob. You're supposed to be the nice guy, but look what we've got here. Shit, Bella's a person, too. White girls have feelings, too."

"I never said she doesn't and I never said they don't. Besides, you're really giving her a lot of credit even though you've hardly said two words to her."

"I don't know. Maybe I can read between the lines. Maybe I've got eyes and ears. But you've gotta stop putting her on a pedestal just because she's some white girl who you think is _so_ much more worthy than your brown ass. Jake, it's stupid. She ain't worth shit."

"Paul, you probably don't know this, but you just cannot go wrong with a white girl."

"Was your mother a white girl?"

Jacob was silent.

"It makes me sick," Paul repeated. "You're lugging that bitch around like some bowling trophy. She's got feelings and—"

"I _know_ she's got feelings," Jacob said, annoyed. "But you're not gonna preach some shit about me respecting her when you just called her a bitch."

"Look, consider this a favor," Paul said. "I know that type of girl. I can tell. And she's not gonna do shit for whatever painful, self-hating, instilled racism angst you're suffering from deep inside. I promise, man. She's gotta do her own thing and so do you, just to stay sane. Anyone with a brain can see that."

And then Paul left. Just like that.

Jacob felt more static than ever.

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ _Thoughts? Show me something._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	43. XLIII

_**A/N:**_ _All I want is to finish this story, ugughghgghg. And I'm nowhere near done. For real, though, this story is my baby. My child. My offspring between me and an old flame (Twilight fanfiction). I can only hope you believe in this story even half as much as I do._

 _This chapter is mostly just some insight on Paul with a good amount of interior monologues. I also do not own Twilight._

 _Enjoy._

 **XLIII.**

 _i will be better  
_ _and we will be stronger  
_ _and you will be greater  
_ _the one that i always wanted you to be_

 _if you can resist it  
_ _and make a commitment  
_ _and stay with me in this  
_ _stay with me in this_

* * *

October came colder than usual this year. Paul realized he didn't even like the cold all that much. Bouncing between different cities in California for a good chunk of his life had done that to him.

It wasn't like he wasn't used to the cold here, though. He knew it like his right hand, but as time progressed that autumn, he realized he was becoming the very thing he had accused Jacob of being: static. Paul was the biggest hypocrite in history, but he had never realized until now that he was so still. This was one of the longest times he'd been here in La Push by his own free will. He had _chosen_ to love Leah and all these people he called his friends (even Jacob), but had he really chosen them? He didn't want to think he was that boring.

Paul believed in fate. He really did. He believed that wherever he had to go, he _had_ to go, but at the same time, he believed in choices. He didn't have to stay tied down to La Push because of the tribe, his fake-ass friends, or even Leah. He was a mixed kid. He was equal parts Mexican and Quileute. He didn't like the boring assholes he'd known since he'd been a kid, and yeah, he really loved Leah—like, a lot—but he knew she was okay with being comfortable. He just wasn't.

So he was an asshole. He was just the kind of motherfucker he hated, the kind that he accused Jacob of being for the sake of Bella the talking bowling trophy. Paul was just like the rest of those middle-class white kids with virtually no problems in those shitty coming-of-age movies based off shitty coming-of-age books, filled with fake-deep quotes about life and love and challenging society's rules and finding a better life, a better future, or a better _whatever the fuck._

Paul was every damn "wallflower," every damn teenage vampire who thinks he doesn't have a soul, every damn fake-deep teenage boy with cancer who wastes money on cigarettes without ever smoking them for the sake of a fucking _metaphor_ rather than his wallet, every damn kid on that series about the show choir, every damn _brain_ or _athlete_ or _basket case_ or _princess_ or _criminal,_ every damn Holden Caulfield, and every damn protagonist that rocked the world of every damn person Paul had ever known at the age of sixteen, all while Paul experienced these spectacular characters secondhand because while he didn't even have a library card, he had a pretty good pair of ears instead.

So he was like the rest. He was fake.

And he was a hypocrite.

At least he knew that. He knew the truth.

Then he was gone.

* * *

He went to see Quil one last time, to try to see if he could stay just one last time. That guy was the butt of every joke these days. Everyone else would get together at the beach or someone's house or whatever boring shit they did and someone would ask, "Where's Quil?" even though they knew the answer damn well. And someone would always say, "In a ditch." Then everyone would laugh and laugh and laugh like it was the funniest shit they'd ever heard.

Paul wouldn't laugh, though. He was an asshole, but not like that.

Paul parked his car, the lemon of a pimp mobile, down the street from Quil's house and ran up to his basement door. He put in the code that everyone had learned when they were little and waited. He glanced down at his watch; it was 2pm. On a Wednesday. Leah was at school, Sam was at school, everyone was at school except him and Quil. And he knew Quil didn't have a real job, so where the hell _was_ this kid?

Paul couldn't help himself; the door to the basement was unlocked.

When he entered, the first thing he saw was Quil's feet, and everything hit him like a bullet.

Paul thought of his father. The bastard—either in jail or on probation—used to get fucked up all the time, but it was usually just on hard liquor. Paul would find him face down on the floor at least once every week, and he'd consider himself safe. At least he didn't have to worry about getting beaten up for the night, and that had held him over. He'd just pray that his dad wouldn't wake up. It never worked.

But the thing is, Quil wasn't his dad. He wasn't anything close.

Paul walked over to his unconscious friend and shook him by the shoulder. "Bro," he said, "bro, wake up. You got any idea what time it is?"

Quil could have been dead for all Paul knew.

"Quil, get up. You gotta go. We gotta go."

He kept nudging him.

"Don't you know you got places to be, man? Don't you know?"

* * *

Paul left after that. He drove off to Seattle and didn't look back. He had places to be, too. He didn't want to look Leah in the eye and tell him he was leaving again; he wasn't that brave. So he just packed up his belongings and left.

Leah came home to an empty house after work that night.

All she could say was, "Fuck."

Over the next couple of weeks, she tried to not be outwardly mad. She moved back into her mom's house without a word and didn't blow up once. No, she didn't have the energy for that. All she did was simmer. She was still that mean, angry girl; Paul hadn't taken that away. All he had done in her presence was put it on hold. So she was angry again, but only on the inside. She learned to be good at hiding how she felt; it was a sign of maturity to her. Somebody had to be mature since Paul wasn't.

He didn't even call her until he had been gone for two weeks. His words went in one of her ears and out the other. All that she picked up was, "I'm alive and I'm in Seattle and I'm stealing cars and I miss you."

All that she said in response was, "You're full of shit." Then she hung up.

So she didn't hate him. She wasn't going to blow up at him. All she was going to do was wait. He'd be back later; he was the original comeback kid.

She just wasn't going to be around when he wanted her again.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** On deck: Clearwater family values. In the hole: more cut losses._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	44. XLIV

_**A/N:**_ _I own no part of Twilight. So here is chapter 44 of Static. We're already halfway there._

 _Enjoy._

 **XLIV.**

 _i can just hear them now_  
 _'how could you let us down?'_  
 _but they don't know what i found_  
 _or see it from this way round_

* * *

By late-October, Leah had decided that her world had gone into retrograde again, all because of Paul. She couldn't take it back or deny it anymore; as much as she hated him, he had a lot of power over her.

After Paul's departure, Leah had moved back home with her mother and Seth. Sue had soon been diagnosed with stage IIB breast cancer, so Leah was running around between work and school and doctor visits. She was driving Sue's car around more than ever now even though Seth was the one with the license. Leah just found herself taking more chances because she had more time and, therefore, more responsibilities. She kept forgetting Seth was still in high school; somehow she always felt that he was more mature. She still needed to get her damn license, though. Charlie seemed like the only cop around, but he wasn't, and Leah would hate to go to jail again. She could swear she was starting to lose her hair over all of this and she wasn't even the one who was sick.

On her way to the hospital one night, Leah realized she was a shitty person. Seth's eighteenth birthday had been three weeks ago and she hadn't done a thing for him. He'd gotten his license by himself that day. All she had done was make him tag along with her to pick up Sue from her appointments. When Leah couldn't drop Sue off, Charlie Swan always came through to do it for her. Leah still didn't understand why.

But even though Charlie was a very helpful part of all this care giving, Leah still felt like shit about missing Seth's birthday. That part wasn't Paul's fault, at least.

On the way to the hospital in Forks, Leah pulled into the parking lot of a sketchy-looking roadside convenience store.

"Lee, what are you doing?" Seth asked in his deep voice. Whenever he spoke, Leah remembered that he was eighteen now, not fourteen or thirteen or twelve. That was why she was driving even though he had his license; she had to remember her age.

"You have your ID on you, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

She started to get out. Then she nodded her head toward the outside lights of the store. "C'mon."

He followed her into the store, and she went right to the front counter.

"What, you want cigarettes?" he asked.

"Get outta here," she told him. Then she turned to the cashier. "One ticket for the CashBall, please."

The cashier, an older Quileute, asked for an ID.

Leah turned to Seth. He showed the cashier his license, and then Leah fished two crumpled up dollar bills out of the pocket of her jeans and put them down in the palm of Seth's hand. He handed the cashier the money and in return, got a little piece of paper that said he had a chance of winning a million dollars.

"Wow, Lee," he said as they walked back to the car. "A piece of paper."

"Happy birthday," she said. "Now let's go see Mom."

* * *

The hospital was such a familiar place to them now, and Leah and Seth had only been at this for a little over a month, but the Clearwaters were comfortable people. They could fall into the habit of anything. That was probably why it was so easy for life to pass them by.

Leah and Seth always waited for Sue's appointments to be over so she wouldn't have to wait on them. They still had plenty of time before the appointment was supposed to end, so they waited in their familiar blue plastic chairs. Leah sank deep into hers and shut her eyes for a moment—she was exhausted.

"Lee," Seth said quietly.

"What?"

"Why'd you come back home?"

She opened her eyes and looked over to him. He was balancing a textbook on his left knee and a notebook on the other, scribbling in notes.

"What class is all that for?" she asked.

He didn't look up. "AP Stats," he said. "I have a test tomorrow morning. But you didn't answer my question. Why'd you come back home?"

"What do you mean? I live here."

"You moved in with Paul."

"No, I didn't," she said. _If I did, then he wouldn't be gone—again._

"Okay, but you were straight-up living with him. You only visited me and Mom to get some more of your stuff."

"I was just down the street."

"Yeah, but why did you move back home at all?"

"'Cause… well, 'cause Paul left."

"No offense, but he's a dumb-ass."

"Well, yeah, Seth."

"You act like you know all this now, but if you knew the whole time then you wouldn't be in this situation again."

Leah sighed. "You don't even know the guy."

"I don't even need to."

"Okay, _Mom_."

Seth grew quiet. "Lee, Mom got diagnosed with cancer two days after you moved back in."

"What does that have anything to do with me, though?"

"You're a jinx."

Leah paused for a beat. Then her voice went up an octave. "Are you kidding me? Did you really just say that to me?"

"You came too late," he continued. "You wouldn't have even come home if Paul hadn't left, probably."

"Seth, what the hell are you—? Are you _okay?_ "

"Are you?" he asked simply.

"Everything that's been going on with Mom has _nothing_ to do with me or me being with Paul. The fact that you would even think that about me is _so_ fucking dis—"

"Hey there, kiddos," a somewhat voice said. Leah turned around to see her three favorite people in the world: Charlie, Bella, and Jacob.

"Oh, hey," Leah replied, surprised. "Is there a party going on or something?"

"Nah, we just wanted to see Auntie Sue," Jacob said, plopping down in the seat next to Leah's. Bella sat down between Charlie and Jacob. Leah actually wanted to throw up, but she wanted to see her mom more, and she especially wanted Seth out of her face.

Leah tossed the car keys to her brother. "Go home," she told him. "You have a test tomorrow morning, remember?"

"How are you and Mom gonna get home, then?" Seth asked in a pissy tone.

She nodded her head over to her three favorite people in the world.

"Whatever," Seth said, getting up. He stormed past them so fast that he didn't even hear Bella's comment on how impressive it was that he was taking AP Stats.

Jacob looked to Leah and he just mouthed, _Wow._

 _Leave me the fuck alone_ , Leah thought. _You're not even my friend._

"How are you, Leah?" Bella asked, leaning forward to look at her.

The girls hadn't talked since the dinner the Swans had thrown last summer in order to apologize for Bella's attempted homicide.

"I'm fine," Leah replied. "How's the daycare?"

"It's good," Bella replied.

"So what brings you here?" Leah asked, expecting a truthful answer this time.

"The old man really wants to see your mom, I guess," Bella replied with a sad smile.

Leah looked to Charlie. He was hunched over, his nose in a pamphlet about breast cancer.

"All he reads now is stuff about breast cancer," Bella said.

"God, that is so sad," Leah said.

"I think it's sweet."

That was where they were completely different people.

Leah awkwardly leaned back into her chair, and then Sue finally emerged from a door, being walked out by her designated oncology nurse, Linda. Linda looked like a younger version of Sue, with straight brown hair and a genuine smile. Seeing her just made Leah sadder and sadder.

Sue waved goodbye to Linda, and then she approached Charlie. They gently hugged, and it made Leah wildly uncomfortable.

"How'd it go?" he asked her.

"Better," she replied. "At least, it hasn't spread to my lymph nodes. A lumpectomy is the next step."

"We'll get to that next step, then," Charlie replied.

Leah loudly cleared her throat.

Sue turned to her. "Where's your brother?"

"He went home," Leah replied. "He's got a big test tomorrow."

"That boy's always got a big test in Stats. He stays on top of his work, though. He always does so good in class."

 _This night honestly just gets worse and worse_ , Leah decided.

"Yeah, well, I'm gonna get a ride with Jacob and Bella," Leah said. "So I'll see you when I get home."

Sue looked at Charlie, and then back to Leah. "I'll see you."

Leah began to walk out to the parking lot, and Jacob and Bella trailed behind. Sue and Charlie trailed far, far behind, murmuring among themselves.

Leah ended up sitting in the backseat of Jacob's Rabbit even though Bella was getting dropped off first, and she honestly felt like an asshole. Leah was the asshole of the year. Asshole of the century. She was probably a jinx, too.

She also turned out to be invisible because once Jacob pulled up to Bella's house, he got out of the car and walked her to her front door. They stood on that porch for what felt like hours, and Leah didn't want to look but she knew they were making out. Bella was probably sucking his dick on the porch, since she was like that, and Leah felt like catching the bus or even walking back to La Push.

It was freezing tonight, and it felt like the night she had lost her virginity to Tom Anderson. A lot had changed since then, but she would still sucker punch any white person who tried to call her Pocahontas again. She wondered if Bella was a freak like that. Maybe she liked to refer to Jacob as Squanto in bed. Or Crazy Horse. That would be kind of kinky.

It was late. It was time for Leah to go home.

So she made a scene—of course she did—and she loudly got out of the backseat of the Rabbit and moved to the front seat. The noise startled Jacob and Bella and they quickly broke apart. Jacob walked back to the car, embarrassed, and drove back to La Push in near silence.

They had just pulled up to Leah's house when Jacob spoke. She didn't know it, but he didn't hate her that much. He just thought she was mostly unpleasant, which was true.

"Hey," he said, "I'm here for ya. I know how it feels."

Leah didn't want to ask what _it_ was. _It_ could be a lot of things. Being accused of jinxing her mom's cancer, being a third _and_ a fifth wheel in the same night, being the dumb sibling, and being dumped like shit once again by the same fucking person were all perfect candidates.

"No, you don't," she replied bleakly.

"Who else but me would know about having one dead parent while the other one's suffering?"

Leah didn't say anything. She just got out of the car and went inside her house.

Jacob wasn't allowed to be right.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	45. XLV

_**A/N:**_ _Here I present chapter 45 of Static. If you haven't read the previous chapter, I recommend going back and doing that so the details about Sue don't come as a huge surprise. Also, this chapter complements the previous one with the focus being on Bella this time instead of Leah. This chapter was fun to write and is aggressive and also somewhat lighter, but it isn't. If anything, it's the breakthrough that Bella needed._

 _I do not own Twilight._

 _And of course, enjoy._

 **XLV.**

 _feel like a brand new person_  
 _so how will i know that it's right?_  
 _in a new direction_  
 _so how will I know i've gone too far?_  
 _stop thinking you're the only option_

* * *

While being with Jacob was as easy as breathing to Bella, it didn't feel so private anymore.

Being an only child from a broken home, Bella had never been very family-oriented. She hadn't grown up around all her friends like Jacob had, or referred to her parents' friends as aunts and uncles. If anything, she thought all of that was weird. They weren't _really_ related.

Bella was truly a loner, taking after her loner father, but these days, Charlie wasn't Charlie anymore. He wasn't her dad these days; he was Leah and Seth's. Bella didn't mind because breast cancer was a big deal, and also because he really liked Sue Clearwater and she clearly liked him back, but that wasn't the issue. Bella was twenty now; she didn't need Charlie in her face all the time, and Leah and Seth were long due for a new dad since they deserved it.

The issue was that her business with Jacob was _everybody's_ business now, and that was not what she had signed up for when she decided to be with him again.

If Bella and Jacob were going to have dinner, it would be with Charlie or Billy, or right before they met up with Charlie or Billy. If they were going to see a movie, then they'd have to make sure it ended before the time they met up with Charlie to meet up with Sue. (Bella liked Sue—she really did—but she didn't know why Jacob was so into pleasing her father by always meeting up with him at the hospital. Jacob didn't have to win over Charlie anymore. He was already Billy's kid; wasn't that enough?) And for whatever reason, Jacob was insistent on taking Leah or Seth or the both of them home. Jacob was trying to be the good kid he already was, and Bella didn't know why.

He was too good for her and her intentions, too pure. His efforts of continuing to live up to what people already thought of him put a damper on the fun part of their relationship. Charlie quickly found out about the motorcycles before the secrecy could even get exciting, and he had laughed for a nanosecond before going serious and saying, "Cut that shit out." Jacob didn't even put up a fight to keep using the motorcycles. He just nodded his head and gave up.

Where was that kid who only had minimal worries? The kid who would get high with Bella on the beach and lose his virginity to her the same night only to almost get caught by a park ranger and run off buck naked? Where was that kid? Where was that kid who would sneak around with Bella anywhere, or fuck her in Quil's truck? Where was that kid who didn't need a plan once Bella persuaded him to do something with her, and he followed her every move the entire time?

She supposed it was easier to not have to date in secret, but Bella didn't go for easiness. She went for what was fun and interesting. And while she was twenty and had a new job and was decidedly _grown_ , she still wanted to have fun with Jacob. She wanted to commit to him without being necessarily married. Yes, she appreciated the maturity and sense of reality he had now, but it didn't mean he had to act like a fucking dad. He didn't even have kids.

She couldn't even break up with Jacob properly the day of. She had called him early at eleven in the morning one Sunday in November, and the first thing he said was, "Can we talk later?"

"Yeah, good morning to you, too," she replied glumly.

He sounded like he was in a hurry. "Morning, babe. Can we talk later?"

"Can I see you now?" she asked, her voice just a little whiny.

"What is it, honey?"

"I need to see you. Like, right now." She couldn't fucking believe that _she_ was the one doing all the begging. It was a lot of work and she was not okay with it.

"I'll be over there soon," he replied. "Me and Charlie wanna watch the Seahawks game."

"You're not my dad's boyfriend," Bella said, trying really hard not to sound upset. "I really need to talk to you. Meet me at the beach."

Then she hung up and started up her truck. She decided that if he wasn't waiting for her at the beach, then she would key his car the next time she saw it.

Jacob was the first thing she saw at the First Beach parking lot, and it was a little comforting, but she knew she would still have to break things off with him. It wouldn't be easier if she wasn't angry with him, so she forced herself to become angry. She didn't even greet him when she got out of her truck. She just glared at him.

"Hey, Bells," he said.

"I wasn't your business partner, Jake," she began. "I wasn't just someone you could make plans with without listening to shit I had to say."

"What do you mean?" he asked slowly, confused.

"You've been sounding a lot like my ex lately," Bella continued, "and that's not what I signed up for. I didn't sign up for a chance to win dates with you, you know?"

"You don't have to win anything," Jacob replied. "I get it if you're upset, but—"

"But what?"

"But we have to make time for each other."

He sounded just like Edward, and it blew her goddamn mind.

"I wasn't your business partner!" she exclaimed. "You couldn't just organize _meetings_ with me for when you wanna fuck me! We shouldn't have had to do any of that!"

"Okay, calm down," he said. "When you calm down, can you please tell me why you're speaking in the past tense?"

"Because we're over," she replied. "I need space. Present tense. I. Need. Space. I need space from you, from my dad, from Leah because she still hates the shit out of me over what I did last summer, from everyone. I need to be alone and I need to grow."

He didn't even put up a fight. Where was the begging, the pleading? "Just tell me how much time you need," he murmured. "I'll wait."

"I'd tell you to hold your breath," she said, "but that might just kill you. I want to be _alone_."

"And you can be alone. But tell me why."

"Jake," she said easily, "if you're not gonna love me, I have to figure that shit out for myself."

"Oh, really?" he sneered. "You're gonna do shit yourself and unzip your own dress and backpack to the fucking Grand Canyon and all that other cheesy white girl shit?"

"Bitch, I might!" she yelled. "You're so fucking stupid, Jake! First, you leave me all alone while you play Super Boyfriend by only being around my dad and suddenly becoming a saint when I wanna suck your dick because fifteen minutes apparently isn't enough time. Then, when I say I _want_ to be alone, you think it's stupid. You're an idiot."

"Okay," he said nonchalantly.

"And I hate you, too," she added.

"I never said I hated you," he replied.

"Well, you _must_ hate me based on how shitty you've been in bed lately."

"Bella, you're a bitch and a half."

She put her hands on her hips. "Okay."

"So have you said your piece?" he asked patiently.

She nodded. "You?"

"I could say some shit that would really hurt your feelings, but yeah."

"Whatever, Jacob. You're just in a hurry because you've got a date with my dad."

"I am, actually," he replied. "Thanks for remembering."

"How could I forget?" She could go at this all day; she knew how Jacob always wanted to have the last word.

"Don't you have to go be _alone_ somewhere?" he asked, getting into his car.

She opened the door to her truck. "I do," she said as she climbed in.

He started his car and rolled down the window. "Okay, then, bye."

She rolled down her window. "Bye," she replied.

"Bye, Bella!"

"Bye, Jacob!"

He drove off, his tires squealing in the gravel.

She wasn't even angry. She remained calm as she drove out to Port Angeles. She even grew content when she treated herself to lunch at a restaurant that _she_ had always wanted to visit and took herself to a movie that _she_ had always wanted to see. She was okay without Jacob. She was even kind of happy.

Then after her lunch and movie, she did something she had wanted to do for months now. She bought a vibrator.

When she got home later that afternoon, Jacob was nowhere to be found. He wasn't in her presence, and he wasn't in her thoughts. She was alone. Truly alone.

And she felt like God.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks as always. And of course, tell me how you feel._

 _The next chapter contains actual feminine camaraderie._

 _Much love,_

 _HS_


	46. XLVI

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. So, anyway, here is the 46th chapter of Static. I'm starting to feel kind of static myself, but I think once we get into the 60s chapters, it'll feel better. We're still moving, y'all.  
_

 _This chapter features: a time jump of about a month, an unexpected friendship (or was it really?), and, as per usual, some deception._

 _Thanks as always for sticking around, and enjoy._

 **XLVI.**

 _i promise i'll be better_  
 _all of these things, they will change_

* * *

As December arrived, Leah's peace of mind followed. It was the coldest December the badlands had seen in a while, but somehow, and for some reason, it didn't get Leah down. Despite her mother suffering but making slight improvements and her brother being a piece of shit to her and her ex still nowhere to be found, she was okay. A lot was changing, and for once in her life, she could keep up.

The evening before final exams, Leah caught a ride home from the Peninsula College with Bella, and they were on their way to the latter girl's house. They were both going into opposite things (Bella was going into teaching; Leah planned on entering law), but somehow, and for some reason, they studied well together. They had been doing a lot of things together recently, thanks to Charlie's undying devotion to the decidedly undying Sue. Going to the Swan's house was just about second nature for Leah.

The moment Leah got into Bella's truck, she rubbed her hands together and exhaled. She saw her own breath.

" _Jeez_ , Bella," she said. "How do you live like this?"

"I don't," Bella said bleakly. "I'm dying."

Leah reached up to fumble with the heater. She twisted and messed with some buttons and knobs to no avail.

"Don't worry about it," Bella said. "Baby's been frozen since the Internet came out."

 _Don't worry about it_. Leah hated when anyone told her that, but she kept quiet.

Bella drove in silence, and Leah decided to finally let it all go. She had been working on it, but when she realized that the girl driving the car wasn't really Satan, she could feel herself move forward.

Leah looked out the window, and she caught a glance of an ancient, familiar pimp mobile. She had to be dreaming, so she just looked away.

* * *

When Bella and Leah arrived at the former girl's house, they threw their stuff down onto the wooden floor.

"I'm over it," Leah sighed.

Bella quickly began to pick her things back up. Who was she kidding, just dropping everything like that? She needed to pass. "Over what?"

"School."

Bella began to make her way to the dining room table. "At least this is better than high school."

"True."

Leah sat down next to Bella at the table, and as they crammed for finals, it was actually normal. Leah didn't despise Bella anymore, and Bella wasn't scared of her. (In all honesty, Bella had never been truly afraid of Leah; she had only been afraid of the truth.)

"So how's your love life going?" Bella asked.

Leah scoffed and looked up from her notebook. "What love life?"

Bella just laughed. "C'mon, Leah. What's going on? How's Paul?"

Leah gave her a dirty look. "He hasn't been around since October."

"Shit, sorry," Bella said. "I didn't know."

"Yeah," Leah muttered. "So I have no love life."

An awkward silence ensued.

"So what about you?" Leah asked, shading in the corner of her notebook. "How's your love life doing?"

"Well, me and my vibrator are in a very committed relationship," Bella replied with a straight face. "We're getting pretty serious."

Leah played along. "Oh, that's cool. What happened to Jacob?"

"I broke up with him."

Leah pretended to be surprised. "Really? Why?"

Bella sighed and sat back in her chair. "Let's be honest," she said. "The only way I'll last with someone is if I die with them or something."

"Okay, true, but I thought you and Jake were gonna stay together."

Bella felt a small, small twinge of sadness. "Yeah, me too."

"So why'd you break up?"

Bella shrugged. "I don't know. I just—I guess I just got bored, which is such a shitty thing to say, but—"

"Yeah, that's pretty shitty," Leah interjected.

"I know, thanks," Bella continued, "but that's what happened. Since I got a life I've had a new perspective on things, you know? I thought I decided what I wanted, and I thought it was fun. I wanted to be super private and not have anyone know about me and Jake again because people around here… they just like to pick and pick and _pick_ at relationships and other shit that isn't their business to pick at. But I've gotta grow up, I guess, and learn how to deal with it. I mean, people are always gonna watch. They're always gonna talk." She shrugged again.

"I just thought Jacob's dick game was weak or something," Leah said bluntly.

"No, it's strong," Bella said with assurance. "Like, when we would fuck it'd be pretty good since he has a lot to work with, but the issue was that he'd never want to fuck. I mean, Leah, I'm basically a rabbit. Everyone probably thinks I'm a slut or whatever, but I like sex. A lot. I mean, it's fun. Whatever. Jacob was treating me as if we were married forty years. He wasn't down for anything or he'd plan it accordingly, and the thing that killed me the most about it was that he reminded me of my ex. My motherfucking piece-of-shit ex who bailed us out back in Venice."

Leah raised her eyebrows. "Oh."

Bella nodded. "Yeah. Edward would just control everything that we did—even the little things. He'd plan what we'd do or where we'd go, but I don't like being a fucking business partner. I like being a fucking girlfriend. I take things as they come, you know? I don't like that planning shit unless it's serious, like a wedding, and Jacob rescheduling his session to eat me out in order to watch some guys throw a ball around with my dad is _not_ serious. I don't need a fucking plan. Or a _fucking_ plan. It's stupid."

Leah just nodded. "I get it," she said. "But it just seemed like Jacob was in love with you. Like, that boy really had a thing for you."

"I bet he did," Bella replied. "But he was treating me like his wife when I was nowhere near it. I have to grow up and settle down someday, but not now. Shit, I'm only twenty."

They were both silent. Bella was lost in her thoughts.

"And I'm a loner, anyway," she added, her voice cracking. "All I've known ever is space, so I guess I better get used to it."

The conversation dissipated after that.

* * *

The night before Christmas Eve, Sue had a lumpectomy, and the hospital group (meaning Leah, Seth, Charlie, and Bella since Jacob had dipped once Charlie figured out he and Bella weren't together and things eventually got awkward) was buzzing. After this, Sue was due for radiation therapy and then, hopefully, she would be free. The chance of her being okay after all this was better than Christmas itself.

They stayed at the hospital for Sue as long as humanly possibly. She was the support group that no fake-deep young adult novel could create. These people were real and they were really here for her.

Charlie and Seth had gone to get food in the evening, and Bella and Leah sat next to each other. Bella idly doodled in the corner of a breast cancer pamphlet, and Leah noticed the edge of a black line on the inside of Bella's left wrist.

"Is that a tattoo?" Leah asked.

Bella pushed up her sleeve. "Oh, this? Yeah."

"When did you get it?"

"Venice. Seaside, if Charlie asks. Kim has the same one."

Leah made a face. "Hmm."

"Do you still talk to her?"

"Kim? I don't know."

"What happened?"

At this point, Leah's memories of her anger with Kim were so distant that she didn't even know why they didn't talk anymore. Leah had originally been angry because Kim had ratted her out to Sue about all the new clothes she had acquired in California without revealing what had actually happened. But Leah had been forced to admit she was seeing Paul again. The entire situation was so alien now, though, because Paul wasn't around anymore (as far as Leah was concerned) and Sue had bigger things to worry about.

Leah felt really petty all of a sudden.

"Doesn't matter," she finally said to Bella. "We've just been busy. Do _you_ talk to her?"

"Occasionally." Bella paused. "Sorry for almost killing you at the beach last summer, by the way."

"I was waiting for you to apologize."

"Was the spaghetti not good enough?" Bella asked teasingly.

"No," Leah said bluntly.

Bella laughed. "I know."

"Sorry for trying to fight you back in Venice," Leah said. "At that house."

"Oh, God, don't be," Bella replied. "I was so white girl wasted. I would have kicked my own ass." She almost added that Edward had kicked her ass for her, but she kept her mouth shut.

Leah was silent, but she let the question roll off her tongue. She and Bella _were_ friends, she supposed. "What do you think of Paul?" she asked.

Bella gave her an amused look. "I don't think of Paul," she said.

 _Good answer,_ Leah thought.

Leah checked her watch. "It's kind of late," she said, starting to stand up, "and I can't take this hospital food anymore. You want anything from the store?"

"I'm good, thanks," Bella said.

Leah left, and Bella pulled out her phone from her pocket. She began a new text message.

 _When can I see you again?_ is what she typed in the box. Then she sent it to Paul.

* * *

Leah had to work at Floriano's the next night, Christmas Eve, but at least the restaurant closed down early. It was late, though, and she came home to an empty house. Sue was probably with Charlie, and Seth—Leah couldn't think of where her brother was.

She knew where he'd been, though.

When Leah turned on the light switch and entered her living room that night, she found tons and tons of smashed Christmas tree ornaments littered throughout the floor. Sharp, shiny pieces of red and green and cold decorated the carpet.

It was the Clearwaters' first Christmas without a tree.

Well, no. It was their second. The winter that Harry had died hadn't comprised of a Christmas at all.

But things were supposed to be different now. And Leah supposed they _were_ different, but not in a good way.

 _Shit_ , Leah thought. _At least Seth tried._

She never thought she would do it, but she suddenly backtracked and drove right to the Swans' house. They were practically her step-family, after all.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Up next is my favorite: a good old party scene._

 _Let me know what you think._

 _HS_


	47. XLVII

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. So now that that's out of the way, here is chapter 47. I really enjoyed writing this. I've also been LOVING you guys' reviews. It's really good to read what you guys think. It reminds me that I'm not in this alone. So keep doing your thing. This chapter is kind of important and a little explicit, as a head's (lol) up. Enjoy._

 **XLVII.**

 _i like it when you come in_  
 _and take up all the space in my mind_

* * *

At 9:35pm on New Year's Eve, Leah woke up to the shrill of her doorbell ringing.

A while ago, she wouldn't have wanted to admit to being this lame, but she was too tired these days. Not necessarily depressed, though. She was just tired because of her job. But the doorbell kept going off, and she knew that whoever was ringing wouldn't leave her alone until she answered, no matter how tired she was.

She groaned chucked her pillow away from her head, heading to the front door. The doorbell was about to break by the time she swung the door open. In front of her stood Jacob Black.

Braless and annoyed, she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned into the door frame. "Do you have any idea what time it is?" she asked him.

"Um, do _you_?" he asked in return.

"Humor me."

"It's nine thirty-seven and you're home alone on New Year's Eve," he said.

"I'm pretty sure Seth's here."

"Nah, he's over at Emily and Sam's house with everyone else. You should go."

"Will you be there?" she asked.

"I always leave New Year's parties by ten," he replied (and she wasn't sure if he was serious), "but yeah, I'm going. We all miss you."

"Yeah-fucking-right," she said. She began to close the door. "I'm going back to sleep."

"C'mon, Lee," he said, putting his foot in the doorway. "That's the saddest thing I've heard in my entire life."

"Okay, well, I'm sad." She didn't know why he was trying so damn hard with her. Why couldn't he just leave her alone like everyone else did? He didn't know her. He didn't know anything about her. What was her happiness (or the lack thereof) to him? Charity? It was pathetic and out of balance.

He just gave her a look. A _That's bullshit_ look, because it really was bullshit.

Then she just gave up. She went to her couch and pulled on the same old blue hoodie she'd worn on the way home from work that day, and then she slipped on some flip-flops over her tall white socks. The look was completed by her party-ready, ratty gray sweatpants.

"I'm not staying long," she said when she finally looked at Jacob again, heading to his waiting car.

"Me neither," he said, not knowing if he meant it or not.

They drove all of two minutes to Emily and Sam's house, where Leah could hear the loud trap music bumping from almost a block away. When Leah counted everybody including herself and her brother, there was only a group of ten people. Everybody only had nine other people they _kind of liked_ around here—how loud could they possibly be?

Leah entered the house, and she realized she hated everybody she'd ever known.

It wasn't even ten o'clock and everybody was fucking _wasted._ Emily was drunkenly trying to reason over something with Sam, Quil was grinding all over Kim, Embry just passed a blunt to Seth, and Jacob was already downing a can of beer. Oh, and Bella and Paul were standing in the kitchen, doing shots and having the time of their lives. Leah felt sick, anyway, but nothing made her sicker than that sight.

Jacob approached her with a beer, and she let it sit in her hand for a moment. She realized that things couldn't get much worse. She could either leave now and feel like an idiot, or she could wait to feel like an idiot until the morning. She picked the latter option.

* * *

Bella threw her head back and downed the shot that Paul had made for her like a pro. She didn't chase it with any lime; she was far past all that now. When she slammed down the glass onto the tall counter of Emily's kitchen, she just started laughing. Paul laughed with her for no reason.

"You're too much damn fun," he said, pulling her in tight by the waist.

She put her hands up behind his neck. "What, did you think something different when I was texting you for the last three weeks?"

He came in really close, his mouth by her ear. His voice was sexy and slow. "I always heard you were a freak, but..."

She giggled into his throat. "Talk is cheap," she said. Then she brought her lips up to his mouth and kissed him hard. She almost drew blood as she tugged on his bottom lip with her teeth. "I got something special just for you," she added.

He didn't feel a thing—he was too fucked up to even think straight. All he saw was Bella's hair, and then he looked past her and saw Leah on the couch with Jacob, their bodies close. They each had a beer in their hands and were just talking, but it looked pretty serious. He had his hand on Leah's knee.

The house suddenly felt a whole lot smaller. Paul was too drunk to figure out why.

So instead, he put his hands and mind all over Bella. She had no idea that Leah and Jacob were here, anyway.

"Hey, let's get out of here," he whispered to Bella. "Show me what you can do."

* * *

In Sam and Emily's bedroom, all that Paul could see of Bella was through the dim lighting of the crack in the doorway. Her long, brown hair flowed down her back, and she struggled to find a hair band to tie it all back. She checked both of her wrists, and then the breast pocket of her flannel.

"Shit," she whispered.

"Don't worry about it," Paul whispered, sitting back on the bed. Then he started to help Bella out of her flannel, but she quickly finished that by herself and was only in her bra.

Paul got the memo and quickly undid the front of his jeans. Bella went to her knees between his legs and ran one of her hands along his abs underneath his t-shirt and the other along his crotch.

Paul breathed sharply as Bella went down on him, and he made sure all of her hair was back the entire time. She was such a sight as she moved her lips up and down against him. She made it look like performance art. She knew just what she was doing. He watched her bob her head over him and from what he saw, she looked like heaven. Pure heaven.

And even better, she wasn't a quitter.

When he was finished, he hoisted Bella up so she was straddling him, and as they fell back onto the bed, he pulled off her leggings and hot pink thong in one clumsy, tipsy motion. Then he shifted her so that she was on her back, and he slid down until his head was between her legs.

She had her hands in his hair as he began to kiss the inside of her thighs. When his tongue entered her, a low moan rose from her throat.

He looked up, put his index finger to his lips as if to shush her, and went back to business.

As Paul worked his mouth through her, she translated all the noises she wanted to make into fingernail digs into his shoulders. She could have sworn she was cutting into him, but he didn't seem to be complaining. Her head was somewhere in the clouds. Where the _hell_ had Paul Lahote and his skillful tongue been all her life? She'd always known of him as a sweet talker, but he was more. He was always _more_. He was so talented that she wanted to cry.

He got her off rather quickly, but she didn't mind. When she got off the bed, she scrambled along the floor to find her underwear and leggings. Paul stood up, pulling his jeans back up.

She couldn't find her thong, so she just put on her leggings and carried on with her life. Bella left the bedroom first after momentarily fussing with her hair, and Paul waited a moment. He took a step forward and realized he was standing on Bella's thong, so he just grabbed it and shoved it in his pocket. Then, after about a minute had passed, he exited the bedroom, heading towards the living room.

The party was still jumping when Paul entered the living room, zipping up his jeans. He looked around the area, his vision somewhat blurry, and he couldn't find Leah. He couldn't find Jacob, either. The house just kept shrinking.

So he found Bella on the couch with Quil, lighting a blunt. It had to be only ten-fifteen—Paul was just getting started.

* * *

Leah sat on the front porch with Jacob, and while the air was freezing, she felt warm in his arms. All she remembered doing was drinking beer, but she had to be crossfaded since Quil had managed to hot box the entire house.

Leah and Jacob were silent, except for the sound of their breathing. She didn't know why she'd fallen into him so fast, but at the same time, she wouldn't let herself admit it. Maybe this was just it—coexistence. Because even though they'd known of each other and didn't particularly like each other, they still had a bond. Maybe that was just the way things went.

 _Coexistence_ , she thought, _is nice._

And suddenly, she didn't regret coming with him all that much.

She took another swig of her can of beer and turned away from Jacob. She looked back at the window next to the front door. Everybody she'd ever known—all nine people—were in there. Nine bonds, nine relationships, from as close as her and Kim to as far as her and Quil. Leah had never understood that; while she and Kim were somewhat similar, Leah hated Quil, but Kim and Quil also got along. It didn't make sense.

It was like Bella and Paul, too. Leah used to think she got along with Paul, and she now somewhat got along with Bella, but now, at this very moment in time, Bella and Paul were sharing a blunt on the couch. Paul had his arm wrapped around Bella's waist, with one hand secure on her hip.

Leah wanted to turn back around to Jacob and merely _stay away_ , but that didn't work on her. She was awful at distracting herself. It took Jacob to get her back.

"They're both assholes, anyway," he said to her. And she knew that he was just being spiteful.

And she knew that he was right.

Leah felt her heart sink into her stomach, but before she could do anything about it, Jacob brought his firm hand up to her jaw and kissed her softly, slowly. He kept his tongue and hands to himself, and for a second, Leah forgot who she was and forgot who he was and forgot all about the other eight people in the house.

Then the second was over.

She pulled away. "I'm done," she said. She started to get up, forgetting that she was drunk as shit and high as hell, and stumbled back into Jacob's arms.

"Let go of me," she told him, trying to get back up. But he helped her to her feet and down the steps of the porch. When she was down on the dirt driveway, she pushed him away.

"Lee, where are you going?" she asked.

"I'm too fucking old for this shit," she said, starting to walk away, her flip-flops scraping against the frozen dirt.

He still followed her. "What do you mean?"

"Just leave me alone."

He caught up to her and grabbed her arm, pulling her back.

She turned around. "Leave me the fuck alone, Jake!" she yelled.

"Could you at least tell me what's wrong?" he demanded.

"I don't owe you anything," she said. "You don't fucking _know_ me. You don't know shit about me, and maybe I don't, either, but I'm not gonna find it here. I'm too old for this kind of shit, so leave me alone."

His voice was quiet as he still held onto her arm. "You're gonna regret this," he said.

She got really close to him, and the words came out like acid.

"You just worry about yourself."

Then she walked away. He didn't follow her, but she sort of wished he would.

* * *

Jacob went back into the house and got yet another can of beer from the fridge. Sam was leaned up against the counter. He looked at Jacob with a serious face.

"What?" Jacob sneered.

"I think you're good, man."

"Fuck outta here." Jacob opened the can and returned to the living room.

When Quil got up from the couch, Jacob took his place. He sat next to Paul, who sat next to Bella. They were as coupled up as earlier, maybe even closer. His hand was on the inside of her thigh now.

"What up, Jake?" Paul asked, turning to him. His breath hit Jacob like a ton of bricks, not because it was that bad, but it was wildly familiar.

"You smell like pussy," Jacob replied.

Paul paused for a moment and then started cracking up. Then he hit the blunt again, the smoke swirling from a crack in the corner of his mouth. Then he passed it to Jacob. "Lighten up," he said, "it's New Year's."

It was actually only a little after ten thirty, but Jacob wasn't going to say anything.

The last hour and twenty-nine minutes of the year passed by in a blur, but then it was 11:59 and everybody was gathered around the TV, watching the Space Needle about to release thousands of fireworks. Emily started the countdown at fifty-nine seconds, and by the last five seconds, everybody in the house, down the block, in the county started screaming. Jacob was screaming inside his head, too.

"Five!" _Leah should be here._

"Four!" _She never should have gone home._

"Three!" _Paul and Bella are traitors, but what's new?_

"Two!" _I'm gonna throw up._

"One!" _I should have gone home, too._

 _Happy fucking New Year to me._

Then the house was truly celebrating. Embry popped more bottles and Quil lit another blunt. Paul and Bella started making out in the middle of the room like the world revolved around them, and Jacob awkwardly looked away, turning out to be right in front of Kim.

They spoke at the same time.

"My breath smells," Jacob said.

"I'm gay as hell," Kim said.

 _Jesus_ , Jacob thought. _Do I suck that bad?_

He turned again and met eyes with Bella, who leaned in and gave him a hug and a chaste kiss on the cheek. She swung like they were old friends. "Happy New Year, Jake," she said.

"Sure, sure," he said, breathing her in. She reeked of alcohol and weed and Paul, Paul, Paul. "You, too."

* * *

Jacob was home by 12:05. He should have just stuck with tradition and gone home two hours ago.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Tell me how you feel._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	48. XLVIII

_**A/N:** It's been a while. Hopefully, chapter 47 was able to soak a little bit in the mean time. This chapter isn't anything wildly special. It really just leads to the next one._

 _As always, enjoy._

 **XLVIII.**

 _the road is long, we carry on_  
 _try to have fun in the mean time_

* * *

Quil loudly emerged through the doors of the Forks hospital. "Hospital squad!"

The receptionist flashed him a look. Leah turned to her apologetically, and then got up from her usual seat in the waiting area and walked over to Quil.

" _What_ are you doing?" she asked him, her voice low but sharp.

"Auntie Sue's got radioactivity surgery, right?" he asked. "We're all here for her."

"It's _radiation_ _therapy_ , dumb-ass," Leah said, "and I know you're as high as a kite right now, but I didn't think you were having hallucinations. Who's _we_?"

He gestured over to the doors, where Emily, Sam, Kim, Embry, Seth, and Jacob entered the waiting area.

Quil turned to them and stuck his tongue out. "Gang, gang!"

Leah shushed him and went over to Emily.

"Hey, Lee," Emily said.

"When did you guys decide to care about my mom?" Leah demanded.

"Don't be so dramatic," her cousin replied. "Today's important. And, uh, it's her birthday so we're surprising her."

"Her birthday's the fifteenth, which is tomorrow."

"I know my Auntie Sue's birthday," Emily replied. "That's the surprise. So lighten up." She gave Leah a smile and a squeeze in the forearm.

Leah actually lightened up a little bit. All nine of her people were here for her mother, which was good. It was great. Then she realized that two people were missing.

"Where are Bella and Paul?" she asked Emily.

"They went to the store to get balloons and stuff for Sue. And a cake for Jacob."

"It's Jacob's birthday, too?"

"Yeah. Can't you tell? He looks aged already."

Leah looked over at Jacob, who was talking to Embry, and wished she hadn't. She didn't even like to _think_ of Jacob anymore since he had kissed her. A part of her was still on that porch, frozen and confused and drunk. He looked back at her for a moment, and she quickly turned away. She couldn't remember being _this_ embarrassed.

 _Get the fuck over it,_ she told herself.

"Let's sit down," she told Emily. "It'll be a while."

* * *

Leah and the seven other people there all sat around in the waiting area, and she realized that things weren't boring when they all linked up. They were all back together—like, _back_ together, and it didn't matter if they were at the beach or at a hospital or Emily's house. She knew that she was _lonely_ and _cold_ and all of that, but her people brought her back.

"You been taking care of yourself, girl?" Leah asked her cousin, her fingers tapping along the blue plastic chair.

Emily didn't have a journal or novel or anything in her hands; Leah could tell that she didn't know what to do with herself if she wasn't writing.

"Me?" Emily asked. "I almost died on the way up here because the roads are icy as fuck."

"Be more careful," Leah said.

"Yeah, yeah. Aside from that, I thought I was in trouble for a minute, but now I'm good."

"Hmm?"

"I thought I had sex back on New Year's since my bedroom smelled weird, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't me."

"Who do you think it was, then?"

"I don't care. I don't know. All I know is that I shelled out a bunch of money replacing my mattress, but it was absolutely necessary."

"Well, you know it wasn't me," Leah replied. "I went home early that night."

"I can hardly even remember New Year's," Emily admitted. "It was a wreck."

Behind Emily, Jacob entered Leah's vision as he walked towards them. Her gazed turned up and followed him. He gestured to the seat next to Leah, on her other side. "This seat taken?" he asked.

"Go right ahead," Leah replied. Then she turned back to Emily. "I got a lot of sleep that night."

"I really wished you stayed, Lee. It was a lot of fun." Emily turned to Jacob. "What'd you think of the New Year's party?"

Leah looked at him with carefully pleading eyes. She was still confused as to how she felt about him kissing her; she didn't need him reiterating everything.

Jacob's eyes darted from Leah's to Emily's.

"I don't remember," he told Emily quietly. "I was drunk."

Leah relaxed a little bit.

"Happy birthday, by the way," Emily said.

"Yeah, happy birthday," Leah added. "Do you have anything planned?"

"Well, I'm here, so it's already a party," he added, his voice just a little sarcastic.

"We should all go get some dinner once Leah's mom is all done," Emily suggested.

Embry then walked over to them, sitting on Emily's other side. "Where?" he asked.

Emily, who was on somewhat good terms with Embry without actually dating him, just shrugged. "Wherever Jake wants," she told him.

"Pick wisely, man," Embry told Jacob.

"You've got it."

Emily and Embry were soon talking among themselves, their voices low, almost secretive. Leah didn't care to know what they were discussing, anyway.

She just wasn't sure if she wanted to speak with Jacob or not. A couple of years ago, she would have thought herself to be a decisive person, but now, she didn't even know. She would have thought that decisiveness would come with age, but apparently not.

"So, how's your mom doing?" Jacob asked.

"Well, she's got radiation therapy on her birthday," Leah replied, her voice strangely bright. "So you win some and you lose some, I guess. How's your day been so far?"

"I'm twenty," Jacob said. "Pretty exciting."

Leah raised her eyebrows. " _Really_ , now?"

"No, not really." And then they were laughing and it didn't mean a thing.

When they calmed down, she said, "I wish I told you earlier."

"Told me what?"

"That being twenty isn't really all that," she clarified.

"That would have solved some of my problems," he replied. "Now I'm screwed."

She smiled. "Sorry 'bout it."

Leah typically wished she was a better conversationalist, but now it was an aching. She didn't know how to continue conversations, despite the fact that she loved to have the last word. She was good at making things awkward, and she didn't like to wait on people to keep talking, so she only filled the space with more irrelevant words, filler words. Even when she thought she was more mature than people, she was really just as annoying as the rest of them. All she wanted was to talk and be heard.

And instead, she chose nothing.

She and Jacob sat in silence until her stomach groaned, loud and slow.

Leah checked her watch. It was 4:30 and she hadn't eaten all day. She thought about going on a quick burger run, but something in the pit of her stomach told her not to go. The roads were icy, anyway.

Suddenly, Charlie Swan entered the waiting area. He quickly greeted everyone and took a seat next to Jacob.

"Hey, kids," he said.

"Hey, Charlie," Jacob replied.

"How bad are the roads?" Leah asked.

"Awful," the chief of police replied. "I wouldn't even bother going out if you don't have chains on your tires."

Leah's stomach grumbled again. Her tires were bare as the trees this time of year. _Stupid, stupid._

She checked her watch again.

"Lee, what's the time?" Emily asked.

"4:33."

Emily leaned forward, setting her elbows on her knees and sighing. "Where the _hell_ are Bella and Paul?"

"I wouldn't even worry about 'em," Leah replied. "They're probably driving extra slow, anyway."

"Where are they coming from?" Jacob asked Leah.

She turned to him. "The store. It's a surprise."

He expressed a skeptical look. She just smiled coyly.

Leah checked her watch again moments later, and it was 4:35. Static blared from Charlie's direction, and he quickly brought his radio up to his mouth. He spoke so fast and in such a code that nobody could tell what was going on. He stood up and began to exit the building.

"Everything okay?" Jacob called.

"Accident on the highway," Charlie responded. "I'll be back."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I write too many car crashes. Whoops._

 _Thanks for your attention, and let me know what you think,_

 _HS_


	49. XLIX

_**A/N:** I do not own Twilight. So here is chapter 49 of Static. (If you didn't read chapter 48, go back.) I like this one more than I thought I would._

 _Enjoy._

 **XLIX.**

 _you like your girls insane_

* * *

The words ran out of Bella's mouth as fast as the blood was gushing out of her head. "Dad, I'm sorry, it just happened so fast."

"Don't strain yourself, kid," Charlie said, his voice exhausted and his eyes bloodshot.

Bella sat on a bed in the ER. Her eyes kept flashing over to the doors, waiting for Paul to come through. The last time she'd seen him was just after the accident, as he was being taken away. She'd nearly blacked out after that.

"I'm so, so sorry, Dad," she said to Charlie.

"It's not your fault," he replied. "It's that other guy's fault. Where the hell is he, anyway?"

"Don't be mad at Paul," she said worriedly. "It's not his fault."

The doors swung open, and Bella's gaze shifted so fast. It wasn't Paul. Instead, it was Dr. Carlisle Cullen.

 _Of all people_ , she thought to herself. She felt even sicker.

"Dr. Cullen," Charlie said.

"Chief Swan. How are you?"

Carlisle was too polite. Too nice. It was crazy to think that her father was shaking hands with the man who had helped raise a monster. How could a doctor, a healer, have created something so harmful?

Overtaken with anger, Bella bit her tongue so hard that she drew blood. It tasted just like the night that Carlisle's son had raped her. Tasted even more like a couple weeks after that, when Carlisle's son had knocked the lights out of her and left her on the ground. That night had left her poor and cold. Even worse, that night had left her stupid.

"Bella," Carlisle said for the second time.

She blinked. "Oh, sorry."

"It's quite alright. Now, how are you feeling?"

There was already somebody at her side wiping away the blood from her face. The gash stung a bit.

"I'm fine," she said, avoiding eye contact with the doctor.

"Would you like to tell us exactly what happened?"

"Might as well file the report now," Charlie said.

Bella opened her mouth to speak, but she was too focused on the doors.

* * *

In the lobby, everybody else waited. Kim just wrung her hands. Quil was quiet for the first time in his life. Jacob's right knee bounced up and down. They had all seen Bella come in. She had looked okay. They'd also seen the pickup truck driver who she'd crashed into. He was in even better condition.

Now they were waiting on just one person.

Leah saw him first, half-unconscious, being pushed in on a gurney.

"Paul!" she called.

He hardly noticed her, but he seemed to be having a tough time.

She suddenly wished he and Bella hadn't made it. She didn't even think she regretted it.

* * *

Bella avoided eye contact with Dr. Cullen. Her eyes kept periodically gazing towards the swinging doors. They finally swung open just as she hoped they would.

He was hardly awake.

"Paul!" she called.

"Bella, we've gotta finish this up," Charlie said. "You can talk with him later."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So we were just coming back from the store with stuff for Jacob and Sue. It's their birthday. I know I shouldn't have been driving Paul's car, but I had to. We had to get back in time for Sue and we were running late. And—and… I'm sorry. I just didn't wanna mess it all up. We were— _I_ was—speeding and ended up skidding because of the ice. I don't remember a lot after that. I'm sorry."

"You crashed sideways into a pickup truck," Charlie confirmed.

"Is the driver okay?"

"He's perfectly fine. It's your friend that's gonna need some work."

Bella's eyes watered up a little, and she turned to where the workers had taken him. They quickly pulled a curtain in front of him.

"Well, you seem to be just fine, Bella," Carlisle said. "We're just going to run a few more tests. I'll be back momentarily."

"Thanks," she said.

"You're very welcome."

Carlisle walked away, and Charlie gave Bella a disappointed look. "God, Bells, what were you thinking?" he asked.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"I know. You've told me that a hundred times now. You _should_ be sorry. I just want to know what in the world possessed you to think that speeding over icy roads in a car with bad brakes was a good idea. You must have a great reason."

"I just wanted to help," she murmured.

"That doesn't mean you can do _that_!" he said, actually upset. "You know you're gonna have to pay for this, right?"

"I know."

"You're gonna have to pay for whatever the damage is, which sounds like it's gonna be a lot. I'll help pay for your hospital bill, but you're gonna have to help Paul with his since this is your fault. And what is this _Paul_ guy to you, anyway? I thought you were still with Jacob."

"Me and Jacob broke up in November." This part was true. "We're still friends, though." That part was false.

"So now you're seeing this guy..."

"Paul. His name is Paul. And I'm not even with him. We're just friends."

"Alright, Bells," Charlie said.

"We are." Except she didn't really know _what_ they were.

"I believe you." Except he didn't believe her.

* * *

Jacob, finally twenty, blew out the candles on his birthday cake at around ten that night, in the Clearwaters' cramped kitchen. It was a new cake, not the one covered in broken glass, smeared somewhere along the highway. He didn't care too much that it wouldn't taste the same. Leah saw the happiness, the sense of _finally, finally, finally_ , radiate all over his face.

And they all cheered for him. Paul, still stiff from the stitches, tried his best. Jake had made it another year. It was a meaningless feat for the outsiders, but in the badlands, it was everything.

It was _everything_.

Sue had made it, too. She was done with radiation therapy. All that was left to do was recover and pray. Pray and recover. And while she knew she was about to experience post-treatment pain, she was happy. Leah saw the happiness radiate from her as she was adorned with yellow roses and Charlie, her two favorite things. And even better, Charlie adored _her._

Leah had always thought of her mother as the type to never change. Sue had lived in La Push almost her entire life. She'd known Harry since she had been fourteen. She'd given birth to Leah at eighteen and the furthest she'd gone was medical school in Forks to become a registered nurse. Leah didn't share the same life ideals, and it would kill her if she did, but the difference between her life and her mother's life was that love played a prominent part in Sue's.

The love lived on, and it allowed Sue to live on, too.

That was what made all the difference.

* * *

Bella was getting ready to leave the Clearwaters' house when she saw Paul slip out the front door, attempting to be unnoticed. She quickly slipped on her sneakers and followed him.

He was starting to head down the icy road.

"Hey," she called to him. "Paul."

He paused and then turned.

"My dad can give you a ride home," she said, "if you want." Paul's car was currently towed away, completely totaled.

"I live right down the street," he replied. "I'll be fine."

She could see her breath in the frozen air as she spoke. "Thanks for not letting me kill you so fast," she said.

He continued walking down the road.

"Don't worry about it," he told her.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks as always. The next couple of chapters features Kim, Emily, a romantic arc involving Leah, and a couple of new characters. _

_Tell me how you feel,_

 _HS_


	50. L

**Part Five**

 **énouement** : the bittersweetness of having arrived in the future and seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self.

* * *

 **L.**

 _and I try to refrain_  
 _but you're stuck in my brain_  
 _and all I do is cry and complain_  
 _because second's not the same_

* * *

"Quil's truck gives me the creeps," Emily said as Kim handed her a heavy cardboard box labeled _Workout shorts_ _._ "I still can't believe you guys really did that last summer."

"Don't mention it," Kim replied. Her voice dropped low. "But for real, do _not_ mention it."

"Don't mention what?" Quil asked, approaching the truck with a couple of boxes in his arms. He shoved them in the back.

"The fact that I'm paying you guys in pizza for helping me move In," Kim said.

" _Sweet_ ," Seth said, carrying more boxes. "I knew you wouldn't have us doing labor for free."

As a plea for independence and a little bit of space, Kim's parents had helped her buy a cheap condo for her birthday last month, in December. They hadn't wanted her to move out, but she had deemed it as a necessity if she were to grow up. The most responsibility she'd had in the decision was where the home would be, and she had decided to go the cheapest, most convenient route. Now she had a little place in a complex named Shady Pointe Condominiums, just on the outskirts of Forks. It wasn't too far from her parents' big house in the sticks, but it was far enough that they wouldn't make any surprise visits.

Life was moving forward for Kim. Finally. As she continued to go to school and work at the gym (as she was now being moved up to a personal trainer), she realized she was grown. Her life was getting in order. And it was a small life, but it was hers. She hoped her home would be the major thing her parents bought for her. The new year was looking pretty decent.

The extraneous part, though, would be moving in. She hated the meticulousness of packing and unpacking. She just liked things to be done before her since she was used to it. But at least she had three handy guys and a girl with a good eye to help her out.

The boys—Quil, Embry, and Seth—brought the last of the boxes from Kim's parents' house and loaded them into Quil's sketchy truck.

"Is that it?" Kim asked Embry.

"Everything that's packed and says it's yours," he replied.

"Thanks. So I'll meet you at the new place," she told the guys. "You can follow me and Em if you forgot where it is."

"You got it, boss," said Seth. He, Quil, and Embry hopped in the truck, and then Kim and Emily got into the former girl's car.

"I'm surprised Sam didn't show," Kim said as she began to drive to her condo. "Where's he at?"

"I don't know," Emily said. "Out."

"I thought you guys were working things out."

"I thought we were, too, but he seems to only stay mad. That's all he's good for, anyway. It's like I'm being cheated on and I'm second place to his anger."

Kim didn't know what to say to her. Emily didn't have the parents or the monetary luck that she had. She couldn't just drop a bunch of money on a new home and _leave_. That was the only advice she had to give and it wasn't even applicable. Her own privilege just smacked her in the face and it burned like hell.

Shady Pointe Condominiums, while in an albeit decent location, really lived up to its name and price. The place was as sketchy as a dingy little town like Forks could get. It was the face of the badlands postcard. _Wish you weren't here._

Kim pulled her car up to her designated parking spot in front of her building, remembering her home was on the fourth of five stories. It was a good thing she was about to become a personal trainer. She'd need the exercise.

The boys pulled into the spot next to her. "Which floor?" Quil asked after he rolled down his window.

"Fourth floor."

A collective groan came from the truck.

"Y'all are so lazy," Emily said to the boys, getting out of Kim's car. "Bambi needs to move into her new place, and it's not like you're doing it for free."

Kim nodded and grabbed a box from the truck. "So get a move on," she added.

It turned out, the transportation of all the boxes from downstairs to upstairs wasn't even the hardest part. That was left to figuring out where all the boxes went. She only had a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom, and a bedroom. Even though Kim had labeled all the boxes, her handwriting had turned illegible, and all the while, she tried to deep clean the bathroom and kitchen as well as change the locks the entire time. Moving in sounded a lot easier on the internet.

By the end of the day, all of the boxes had gotten into the correct room, and she had gotten her bed, couch, and kitchen table set up. She considered the day a success.

After the boys went home after being paid in free pizza, Kim and Emily finished the leftovers as the day wound down.

"Thanks for helping out," Kim said.

"No problem. I just kind of wish Leah showed up at least _once_ during the day."

Kim shrugged. "I guess she still hates me."

"It doesn't bother you?"

"Yeah," Kim admitted. "When Leah's upset, everybody has to feel it. But at least she's not _my_ cousin. I don't have to go to her wedding."

Emily chuckled. "Yeah. Are you still mad at her?"

"Me? No. I'm over it."

She just wished she could talk to Leah, though. See how she was doing and whatnot. Kim felt like they'd broken up and they hadn't even been together. Kim liked change and all that, but shit just wasn't the same and it was partially her fault, she was willing to admit.

They definitely had pride issues.

Why hadn't Kim detected them earlier?

* * *

Within a few days, most of Kim's belongings had found their place, but she realized that she didn't even know her neighbors yet. She'd read on the internet that it was best to get familiar with them in the case of an emergency or something. So after a run one morning, Kim decided to very, _very_ casually say hi to her immediate next door neighbors just to break the existing ice.

Wiping away the cold sweat from her forehead, Kim rang the doorbell.

It was a good thing her heart was already pounding.

The person who opened the door was the single hottest woman Kim had ever seen in her life. She was hotter than Rihanna, hotter than J-Lo when she had played Selena, hotter than _God_ if God was a woman (which Kim thought she had to be). This woman just might be God herself.

The woman had olive skin and long, wavy black hair down to her waist. She was clad in the most expensive, lacy, black bra and panty set that Kim had laid eyes on, and over it, covering one of her breasts, was a satin turquoise robe with a subtle flower print. Her body was incredible, too, with flawless curves and every inch of skin silky smooth—Kim tried to look away, she really did. She brought her gaze upwards and the woman's eyes, a strange golden brown, met hers with an intrigued look. Her pink lips were in a sultry pout, and then one of the corners turned up in a slight smile.

And then another woman appeared behind her. She was just as gorgeous. Actual model material. She wore a similar ensemble to Carmen's, except her lingerie was soft pink and her robe was silver with a white flower print. And she had curly strawberry blonde hair down to her waist. She was paler, but she had the same overall look as the brunette. Her eyes, also golden brown, were interested (Kim didn't know why), and her mouth was in a playful smile.

She tucked a lock of the brunette's hair behind her ear. She kept her eyes on Kim when she purred in a slight Russian accent, "Carmen, come back to bed."

Kim's mouth opened and closed like a goldfish's. "Um—I—sorry," she stammered. "I think I should—"

"No, come in, come in," Carmen insisted, her voice in a soft Spanish accent. She started to close up her robe. "We don't think we've met you before."

Carmen gently tugged on Kim's wrist ( _God, why are her hands so soft_ ) and led her into the condo. It was huge on the inside, and adorned with Japanese art. Light in its cream, woodsy color scheme, Kim immediately felt relaxed. Then she felt like Odysseus, trapped by the sirens' song.

"Come, sit," Carmen said, and Kim obeyed, sitting down on the leather cream couch. The strawberry blonde retreated to the kitchen.

"Tea?" the blonde asked.

"Um, uh—yeah," Kim said.

"I'm Carmen," the brunette said, sitting down on the opposite couch. Then she nodded her head over to the kitchen. "That's Tanya."

"I'm Kim." Her eyes glanced around the room. "How long have you guys lived here?" she wondered.

"About three years now, but we're frequently in and out. We like to travel. I guess you could say our trip to Japan last month had a bit of an influence." She smiled, clearly proud of her home.

Kim's heart exploded, and then she smiled back. "So what are you guys to each other?" she asked. "I mean—"

Then Tanya approached the living room with a tray of tea cups. She handed one to Kim. "Thank you," Kim said. Then she looked at Carmen. "I'm sorry if that came off weird or anything."

Tanya laughed, and the noise resembled that of a flute. It was the most charming laugh on the planet. "Oh, it's fine," she said, sitting down next to Carmen after she set the tray down on the low, wooden table in the middle of the room.

She rubbed her fingers along the back of Carmen's hand as she took a sip of her tea. "We get that a lot."

"Tanya and I are just friends," Carmen said.

"What's the term they use these days?" Tanya asked. "Gal pals?"

Kim tried not to be surprised—she really did—but then Carmen giggled. It was, of course, charming.

"I'm just kidding," she said. "We're together. Engaged, actually."

"Oh, that's so sweet," Kim said, somewhat relieved to know there were other lesbians ( _Am I a lesbian? Or am I bi? Shit_ ) around. It made her feel less like an alien. "How long have you two been together?"

Carmen looked to Tanya. "Six years in March, I think?" she asked.

Tanya nodded. "We've been engaged for six months, though."

"That is so sweet," Kim repeated without noticing her repetition.

Tanya giggled. "Are you also gay?" she asked, not at all shameful in her own question.

 _What?_ Kim thought. _Can she, like, smell it on me or something?_

"I—um, I don't think I know," Kim admitted. "I might be. I think I'm just bi."

Tanya raised a blonde eyebrow. "Interesting."

Kim didn't know how to take that. So she just set her tea cup down and stood up. "I'll see you guys around," she said politely. "Hopefully not right after I've gone on a run."

Carmen and Tanya rose to walk her out.

"Let us know if you need anything at all," Carmen said.

"And maybe we could have dinner sometime soon," Tanya added.

"Thank you," Kim said to the both of them. "That sounds great."

Then she left their condo. When she arrived at hers, just a few steps away, she could hardly go in. She could only lean against the door and try to calm her heart.

 _What the hell just happened?_

* * *

Emily came home from work one night in February to a surprisingly occupied house. She worked at a record store now, and the job itself had managed to make her a little obsessed with organization. The second she entered the house and turned on the lights, she lined up all the shoes against the wall next to the front door. Then she carefully removed her coat and folded it, placing it against the back of a chair in the kitchen. Her eyesight didn't even graze the living room.

"Much better," she mumbled.

"I didn't know you talked to yourself," Sam said.

"Wow, creeper much?" Emily asked. "Scaring the shit out of me in my own house like that."

She made her way to the living room and lounged on the couch next to him, wrapping her arms around him like a comfort blanket. Except it didn't stop him from stiffening up. He was just like that (or that was just what she liked to tell herself).

"How was your day?" she crooned, her voice private.

"Fine," he said. His voice was short. "Yours?"

"More hipster bullshit, you know," she replied. "The works."

"Can't stand 'em."

"Me neither."

There was a moment of silence, but Emily knew Sam's head was empty.

"So I was thinking," she said, "since our birthdays are less than a month apart, we should just celebrate together, during yours."

Her birthday was February 13th, and his March 8th. They were going to be twenty-one so soon and she refused to believe it. Besides the fact that she'd been drinking forever, she and Sam had actually made it to twenty-one years old. Almost. Through two pregnancies and two miscarriages and two thousand blowups since the age of fourteen, they'd been through it all. Loving Sam was the longest thing she'd done besides exist.

And it was like he didn't even know. He thought of them as two separate entities rather than one unit.

"I don't think I wanna celebrate at all, Em," he said. "I've got a lot going on right now."

"What do you have going on that I don't?" she asked.

"Just… just… a lot, okay?" He shrugged out of her arms. "I don't think going out and getting wasted is gonna be the answer. You know what I mean?"

She couldn't lie. "I don't."

"Sorry 'bout it."

So Emily had been wrong. She wasn't second place to Sam's anger at all—she was second place to his pride. She was second place to his piety, his God complex. She was second place to himself.

 _The fucking nerve._

* * *

 _ **A/N:** So that was chapter 50. We have about 30-something left, and I'm so excited. Thank you to all that have been here from the start, and even those who haven't. Every reader is important._

 _Every review is also important, so let me know how you feel. Thoughts on Kim? Tanya and Carmen (a nice little addition I added at the very last minute, but they will have an influence on Kim, I swear)? Sam and Emily? Anything else? Let me know._

 _Up next: Leah and a new love interest. Any guesses as to who it is? I'm curious._

 _Love all around,_

 _HS_


	51. LI

_**A/N:** I do not own Twilight. So, anyway, this chapter is a bit different. It's a little bit surprising and a little scandalous, but the next chapter will make more sense. Enjoy._

 **LI.**

 _man, fuck a title_

* * *

Leah twirled her finger around the old telephone cable in her kitchen as she rolled about on her heels. She didn't like high heels that much, but they could be fun, she admitted. Blazers, on the other hand, were not fun at all, especially over a dress and tights. She felt confined.

"Sorry, Ma," she said into the phone. "I think Charlie's gonna have to take you back home—oh, you guys are having dinner tonight? Okay."

She began to play with her hair, since it was longer and therefore more fun, especially since she decided to curl it today, but then she stopped herself. She didn't need to roll into her first day of her internship looking like a hot mess.

"Yeah, yeah," Leah said. "Thanks for being so proud of me. I never thought I'd actually land the internship. I'm surprised." Her eyes flashed over to the clock. She'd have to leave in the next two minutes if she wanted to make it to Port Angeles in time.

"Okay, Ma, sorry. I'll do my best. I really gotta—okay. Okay. I love you, too. Tell Charlie I said hi. By—Bella? I don't care. No, I—sorry. Ma, I really gotta go. Bye."

She finally hung up. _Jesus_ , she thought. _She's really starting to feel like herself again._

Leah made her way to the front door of her house that Monday morning, but not before checking herself out in the mirror. She looked like a brand-new person. She looked like a law intern.

 _Hot damn._

She'd had an interview prior to winter break, but she'd thought that she'd blown it. She hadn't been in the right mindset (and right now, she still didn't think she was), but the interviewer had liked her or her dazzling charm or whatever. That put her in a better mood until she realized that the interviewer wasn't even going to be the person she'd be following around day in and day out. Leah's guy was named Emmett Cullen and she didn't even know what he looked like. All she knew besides his name was that he was the best attorney at the firm in Port Angeles. And that was fucking _daunting._

It was too late to back out now, though, so she got her stuff together and drove out. She was used to driving to Port Angeles these days, even without her official license (it was coming in the mail, though, very soon). It was long, but it was easy.

Leah arrived at Howard Plath Law Firm with four seconds to spare, but she played it off cool, as if she had been early the entire time. Nobody there even noticed her, despite being clearly out of place. The place was full of older white people, and while she was dressed mostly professionally, perhaps she should have gone for a longer dress. She suddenly felt very brown and very naked.

She was directed to an office by an older white lady whose smiling muscles didn't seem to work. She led Leah to a door with a silver plate in it that had the name Emmett Cullen engraved in it.

 _How fucking pretentious,_ Leah thought.

The lady knocked on the door and was let in by a voice Leah couldn't hear. Then they entered the office. Emmett Cullen sat behind a large mahogany desk.

The first thing Leah noticed was his hair. It was curly, dark brown, and it contrasted his pale skin as it framed it. He had chocolate brown eyes, and she could tell he was actually smiling because they crinkled a bit at the corners. His lips were full—a little too full for a white guy—and his smile was friendly but a little mischievous. Everything about his stature was serious and mature, but it was the smile, adorned with dimples that made her trust him, that really got her.

She knew where she had seen that before.

He rose from his chair and made his way over to Leah and the lady, whose name she had missed. Emmett was tall—around six foot six—and it made Leah feel small, but not afraid. He was big, too, with broad shoulders and clear muscle definition, even through his well-tailored suit.

He looked to the lady behind Leah. "Thank you, Sylvia," she said.

Sylvia just smiled and exited the room. She did have the muscles for smiling, it turned out.

Emmett firmly shook Leah's hand. "I'm Emmett Cullen," he said. "I take it that you're Leah…?"

She smiled confidently. "Clearwater. Yes. Leah Clearwater."

"The intern," he said, putting his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. "So let's get started?"

"Um, yeah," she replied, a little too excited. "What's the plan?"

"Well, since you're nothing but a measly intern," he said teasingly, "how about we start with some organizing? I mean, if you can handle all that work on the first day."

She pursed her lips. "Oh, I believe I can handle it."

He raised an eyebrow. "Good."

She licked her lips without meaning to. "Great."

* * *

Lunch time came around, and Leah decided that she liked Emmett Cullen. She liked his weight on top of hers even more than she liked _him_. His personality was familiar and nice and a little comedic, so she liked that, too. She really did. But when she really thought about it, as he was moving deep inside her and breathing heavy over her, the little remembrances of someone she used to know didn't mean that much.

She couldn't keep her hands to herself, no matter how careful they had to be. Emmett's curls were irresistible to her eager hands. Why would she even _want_ to abstain from touching him when he was just so much?

That was what Emmett Cullen was: a lot. So much. Too much? Enough.

Leah had almost forgotten that they were in the backseat of his car, a roomy Charger, until she felt a vibration against her hip.

Emmett quickly pulled away, out of breath. He brought his left index finger up to his lips and shushed her as he got his cell phone out of his pocket. She noticed he wasn't wearing a wedding ring. She began to sit up, and she moved back to make more space.

"This is Emmett Cullen," he said, answering the phone. "Hello, yes, I am aware of the meeting."

He looked to Leah, whose tights were halfway down. He pointed his thumb and index finger and spun them as if to say, _Can we wrap this up?_

She complied, bringing her tights up and smoothing her dress out the best that she could.

Emmett continued his conversation as he put his jacket back on, and Leah went into a frantic search for her right heel, which had managed to misplace itself somewhere between Emmett tugging her panties down and now. She ran her hands along the floor and under the seat until she finally found it.

Emmett was just finishing his phone call. "Yes, of course," he said. "I'll see you then. Thank you." He hung up and scoffed, pulling his pants up.

"Are you in trouble?" Leah asked. "And I don't mean for what just happened."

He cupped her chin in her hand and gave her a mischievous grin. "We're only in trouble if you want to be."

She giggled and shrugged away. "Then what's next?" she asked.

His words flowed like water. "We go back to work," he began, "you learn how to keep your hands to yourself, I go through an excruciatingly long meeting, all that good stuff." He tucked in his shirt and smoothed it out.

"Do I get to come to this excruciatingly long meeting?"

"You're my intern, right?"

"I thought I was only good for organizing papers, Mr. Cullen." She suddenly felt amazingly dirty.

"You're good for a lot of things, Miss Clearwater," he replied. Then he kissed her hard on the lips. He tasted like expensive cologne and crisp hundred dollar bills.

"Let's get back to work," he murmured.

And somehow, she really thought this would work out.

* * *

It worked out for the rest of the day, as well as the rest of the week. Emmett was about his business and Leah was about not getting fired from a paid internship. It only made sense.

Friday evening, Emmett walked Leah out to her car.

"Do I get a review?" Leah asked jokingly.

"You've done more assistant work than actual intern work," he said reflectively, "so that's a poor job on my part. You'll get in on the action sometime soon, more than likely within the next two weeks."

"I'm surprised you don't already have an assistant."

He shrugged, stuffing his hands into his pocket. "I was looking for one, actually, but didn't have the time. Then I figured I'd rather help an intern get into the law atmosphere. I heard your interview went really well, by the way. Garrett was practically begging me to hire you."

Leah raised her eyebrows. "I mean, to each his own..."

"Leah, for some reason I feel like you have some confidence issues. If I had known then, I might have not taken you out on that lunch date Monday."

"Oh, please," she said. "My thighs did all the talking."

"I was wondering if I could continue to converse with them," he offered. "Do you have any plans for dinner tonight, Miss Clearwater?"

She smiled up at him. "I was hoping you'd ask that."

* * *

Emmett had a huge waterfront home in Silverdale, which was about an hour away from Port Angeles when he drove. The first thing Leah noticed about the house was that it was secluded in regards to the rest of the area, and very empty on the inside.

She commented on the latter fact once she slipped her heels off, noticing that they were the only shoes in the foyer. "Emmett?" she asked.

He was helping her out of her coat, and he hung it and his own coat in the closet. "Yes?"

"If you were planning on murdering your lovely intern-slash-assistant, would you let me know?"

"Sure," he said plainly. "Why do you ask?"

"It doesn't look like anyone's spent a day in this house."

Her eyes traced the foyer. Everything was white, absolutely pristine. It was like something out of a movie. She still felt out of place, like a mistake that was yet to be erased.

"I keep my place clean," he said, kissing the skin exposed near her neck.

"So what's for dinner again?" she asked.

"I was thinking we could order in," he said. "What are you in the mood for?"

"Chinese?" she suggested.

"Perfect." He traced his hands down to her hips, his fingers tracing the soft curves. "Now, just down the hall, there's the TV room. You can go ahead and make yourself at home while I go pick up dinner. Is that alright?"

"Yes, but I have one request," she said, turning to face him.

"Anything you want."

"Don't have me waiting too long."

* * *

Over kung pao chicken and Scotch, as well as _Pulp Fiction_ playing idly as background noise, Emmett and Leah discussed their lives. Or more specifically, his.

"Are you married?" she asked him straightforwardly.

He didn't flinch. He didn't even blink. "Technically," he replied smoothly, "but I'm in the middle of a divorce. Rose and I… we don't work out."

"Rose? She must be real pretty."

He just shook his head. "She's a real bitch."

The kung pao chicken went sour in Leah's mouth. And she knew, in that instant, that she couldn't trust Emmett. No matter how secure he made his home seem, no matter how relaxed he was, and no matter how calming his dimples were, she could not trust a man who referred to his wife or girlfriend or any woman as a bitch.

She didn't feel like the other woman, though—Emmett was going through a divorce. He wasn't cheating on his wife. He couldn't be, because to Leah, they weren't really married. Except they weren't over, either. But something still irked Leah, way down deep.

"Why are you divorcing her?"

"C'mon, you really care about that?" he asked, his voice suddenly defensive. "Why does it matter? I've got you right here, right now, and you're asking about my ex-wife."

"Except you're not exes yet!" Leah replied. "Why are you divorcing her? If it doesn't matter, then just tell me so I don't feel like such a slut."

He narrowed his eyes and downed his glass of Scotch. "Don't complain to me about feeling like a slut. You slept with your boss on your first day, remember?"

She threw down her carton of chicken on the glass table in front of them. She pointed a finger at him. " _You_ came on to _me_!" she yelled. "Don't fucking try it when you were flirting with me that entire day before lunch, and the next three days after, and even today. _You_ always walked me back to my car, _you_ offered to get dinner, and we're at _your_ place. Don't try me, Emmett, because I can be a huge fucking problem if you ask for it."

"You sound just like her," he said spitefully. Before it could sting too much, he continued. "And I didn't mean to say any of that."

"It's not like you didn't say it, though."

"I know. I know. Do you want to know why Rose and I fell out?"

"That is literally _all_ I've wanted to know this entire time."

"She cheated on me," he admitted. "She fucking cheated on me."

She wished she could take back everything she'd said.

Tears started to fill her eyes. "I'm sorry," she told him. "That's the worst. I mean, if she didn't want to be with you, then she shouldn't have kept it up."

"I know," he replied, his voice low.

 _Be easy,_ she told herself. _He's obviously hurt. Be easy._

And she became easier for the time being. She became softer, and she ended up with her hands and knees firmly grounded in the couch. Emmett was gentle and rough at the same time, and he knew how to go for a while. Leah had seen _Pulp Fiction_ a dozen times (via Embry), and by the time she was too tired to go on any longer, the movie had been over.

Emmett and Leah collapsed on the couch, and she laid in silence for a few moments, trying to catch her breath.

"How old are you?" she asked.

"Thirty-three."

She tried to convince herself that it wasn't that bad.

"Okay," she said.

"And you're twenty?"

"Yes, I am."

"Hmm."

Completely spent, she fell asleep in his arms, and she finally forgot who they were.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Tell me how you feel. I'll try to update soon. _

_Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	52. LII

_**A/N:** I do not own Twilight. I'm so sorry for the late arrival of this chapter, but I'm still going. Enjoy._

 **LII.**

 _know that i kept it sexy, and know I kept it fun_  
 _there's something that i'm missing, maybe my head for one_

* * *

Sue's pale, cold hands cupped a mug. Steam floated up past her nose. She shut her eyes as if to take it all in. Leah cupped her own mug. Her fingers burned like hell, and she wondered if her mother would ever feel warm again.

Sue was still recovering. It was a process. It was different and it was slow, but hopefully, it would result in remission. Despite the presence of love in Sue's life, though, Leah could tell she wasn't the same. And why would she expect her to remain the same? She just wanted her mother to know that she missed her.

It was a chilly Saturday morning, and the badlands felt colder than ever.

Leah subtly shook, and she didn't know whether it was from the house's temperature or something else. She was a little excited, a little nervous. Something else, too, but she couldn't name it. Emmett was on her mind, and his fingerprints remained on her skin. They burned slowly, but her skin still couldn't breathe. It was the day after he told her he was still technically married, and the bad vibes were officially settling in. She had tried not to think about it after she and Emmett had had sex yesterday, and on the way home, she had tried to ignore it.

It just wasn't the same today.

She wasn't as angry as she had been yesterday. He had fucked her calm. But she was confused and on the brink of being hurt. She wanted to talk to him, but he was so unavailable over the weekends. It was like he was only real Monday through Friday, and even then, he was something else.

"You look keyed up," Sue said from across the table. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," Leah said curtly. "Just really cold."

"I thought Seth fixed the heater. I should tell him again so he'll actually do it."

"Yeah, maybe."

"How's your internship going?"

"It's fine. Kind of hard, but you know."

"Well, that's law for you. I'm so proud of you, Leah."

"Thanks, Ma."

"Keep your eye out over there," Sue said. "Could find yourself a rich lawyer husband." She winked.

Leah laughed nervously. "Wouldn't dream of it."

* * *

Leah was on edge for the remainder of the morning. She met up with Emily at her house for a late breakfast, and the situation was similar to the one with Sue. It was curtness, short sentences. Arctic. Leah decided that if she went to go see her grandmother up in Neah Bay, her morning would feel the same.

"Em, if I ask you something kind of crazy, will you promise not to judge me?" she asked, snuggling in one of her cousin's living room quilts.

"Our whole _family's_ crazy," Emily replied. "Not much can surprise me at this point."

"I need to use your laptop."

Emily widened her eyes. "That is _so_ crazy," she said, her voice low. Then she snorted.

"Well, I need to look up a guy's address. I'm supposed to meet with him later on and I'm too afraid to ask for it again." So Leah was lying, but what was new?

"That's a _little_ weird, but okay." Emily grabbed her laptop off the coffee table and typed the password in upon opening it. Then she awkwardly handed it to Leah. Leah sat up and put it on the coffee table so the computer would be more balanced.

She simply Googled _Emmett Cullen Port Angeles address_ , and after a moment of digging, she soon found his home address. His real one, in Port Angeles. She wasn't a professional sleuth, but it was so obvious that the home in Silverdale wasn't for more than vacations. It was too far away from his job. It was also secluded in its region and empty as hell. It didn't have shoes in the entrance or mail on the table. The kitchen didn't have anything to consume except Scotch. It was far too clean to actually have people—even one man—living in it. And the TV had about seven stations. Emmett Cullen was clearly a fake, and what was even more interesting was that his actual Port Angeles home was shared with a person named Rosalie Cullen. Of course, the Internet probably hadn't updated to support their current marital status, but still.

She pulled up the directions to his house in Port Angeles, and it was just minutes away from Howard Plath, the law firm. She wrote down the address and directions on a slip of paper, and quickly got her things together.

"Off to meet him?" Emily asked.

"Yeah, I think so," Leah said. She wasn't sure if she was going to confront him or not—she wasn't sure about anything.

"Don't let him murder you," Emily called as Leah left.

"Wouldn't dream of it!"

* * *

Leah arrived at Emmett's house, and upon sight she found it foolish that he even owned a vacation home. This house was incredible on its own. It was big and white, adorned with silver finishes. It was secluded but part of a neighborhood, and it had a huge, empty driveway leading up to it. The overall look reminded Leah of Kim's house—or her parents' house now, really. It was extravagant. Leah parked at the very edge of the driveway, closer to the street than the house, and slowly approached the property.

The house didn't have the feeling of a home at all. The front door was unlocked, and when Leah entered the foyer, she found the place to be cold. Freezing, just like today.

The foyer led to a narrow hallway, which Leah quietly wandered through. Her eyes scanned the walls on both sides of her. It was a shallow, stylish way to make a cold house into a home. Then again, what did she know about the Cullens?

The hallway was a gallery. Each photograph, framed in silver, had a name engraved in silver in the bottom left, and then the date on the bottom right. Emmett and Rosalie seemed to both be controlling people, but Leah had a feeling that this was all Rose's work.

A photo of Emmett and a very pregnant blonde woman caught Leah's eye. She tried to un-see it, but she couldn't shake the fact that this woman—who was drop dead gorgeous in a very classic way—had to be Rosalie. Emmett had his arm wrapped around her tightly, and they were grinning like the happiest couple, and she was _crazy_ pregnant. About to pop, basically. In the picture, they stood in front of a huge Christmas tree, and even though it was in black and white, Leah could _feel_ all the colors. The caption on the left wrote _Emmett + Rosalie (+Evelyn, en route)_ , and the one on the right wrote _12-25-13._ That was literally a month ago from today.

Either they currently had a baby, or they had one on the way.

There was no _fucking_ way Emmett was divorcing his wife.

But Leah tried to believe he still was. Over the frantic pounding of her heart, she tried to believe that Rosalie, all pregnant and glowing and obviously happy with her perfect husband and perfect life, really had cheated on Emmett, and they really were getting a divorce.

" _Rose and I… we don't work out."_

They were as perfect as a picture.

Leah's eyes kept scanning the hallway, and she was about throw up when she saw the next photograph.

Bella, clad in an oversized shirt and denim shorts, stood on a beach—way too nice to be First Beach—with a guy who looked somewhat familiar to Leah. The first caption said, _Edward + Bella_ and the second one said, _7-4-11_.

It was Bella and the guy who had bailed Leah and her girls all out of jail last summer back in Venice. Except back in the day, he looked less stupid. Leah didn't understand how someone in their early 20s could look worse than they had when they were a teenager. Regardless, Leah understood that scumbags ran in the family.

She'd had enough, so she continued to walk through the hallway before she hurt her own feelings again.

The hallway led to the kitchen, and Leah walked in on a sea of roses. She couldn't even _attempt_ to convince herself that they had anything to do with her.

On the kitchen island, Leah counted nine bouquets of pink roses, and in the center of all of them was a note attached to a sonogram.

 _Can't wait for the new addition of our family to finally arrive. I love you forever._

 _E._

Rosalie was due—presumably very soon. The pink roses, the nine bouquets… Emmett was a proud husband and soon-to-be father. If he wasn't human garbage, Leah would want to marry him herself.

But in reality, she was a mere intruder. A home invader. A mistress. An actual homewrecker.

Then she heard the front door swing open.

* * *

That evening, Leah joined Emily and Kim in Forks a late dinner in the latter girl's condo. Leah and Kim got over their issues at once, and it just felt right since Leah had been feeling wrong all day.

"So I'm laying there," Leah began, "nut all over my tits, and I'm like, What the fuck am I _doing_?"

Emily nearly snorted out her pasta.

"For real?" Kim asked, sitting across her square dining table from Leah.

"For real, for real," Leah replied. "He leaves to go get the warm rag and shit, and I've literally never felt so awful."

"So did you break up with him?" Emily asked.

Leah nodded. "I did. I felt so… _wrong_ , you know? I mean, there's gotta be something fucked up with me since I found out he was happily married and expecting a baby after literally breaking into his house, but I still willingly slept with him when he caught me. I don't know. But there's gotta be something _deeply_ fucked up with him to want to be with me in the first place."

"Yeah, I hear pregnant sex is amazing," Emily replied.

"Also, I'm only twenty," Leah added. "He has no business wanting to be with somebody as young as me, but he took the chance, anyway, and I feel so fucking gross. And I know my situation was not the same as hers, but I felt how like Claire probably felt when she was with Quil."

The three women fell silent. Nobody really thought of Claire anymore, and now they were forced to.

"So what are you gonna do now?" Kim murmured.

"I'm gonna leave the firm," Leah replied.

"You're just gonna _quit_?" Emily demanded.

"It's not like I can _stay_. I guess he could pay me to keep quiet, but I'd rather just leave."

"You're burning money, though," Emily continued. "You worked so hard for that interview and now you're just giving up."

"Em, please," Leah sneered. "It's not like you've never quit a job before. And besides, I don't like law studies. I don't like arguing with people. It's boring. You have to be really smart to get into that profession, and honestly, if I was a smart person, I would have been able to keep an internship without sleeping with my boss on the first day. If I was smart, I'd just do my job like a normal person." Her voice was cracking now. "I'm an idiot."

The women were silent again.

Leah began to speak from a sort of stream of consciousness. "I'm so stupid," she said, "and I don't think I'll be able to live it down. Like, people in music and on the Internet and shit treat cheating and being a ho like it's a culture. Like, 'Oh, I wanna be a homewrecker. I wanna ruin a marriage.' But no one actually _wants_ that. It's one of the worst feelings in the whole world. And then there are all the accusations. Once you're for real a homewrecker, you feel awful about yourself, but I never understood why that's even a term, anyway. How could _I_ be the homewrecker when it was the man who opened the door in the first place?"

"That's so messed up," Kim said.

Leah nodded. "Yeah. Oh, and did I tell you? Emmett is the older brother of Edward, the guy who bailed us all out of jail when we fucked up in Venice last summer."

"Bella's ex?" Emily asked.

"Mm-hmm."

" _Shut_ up."

"I know!"

"Small fucking world," Emily muttered.

"I think we all need a break," Kim suggested.

"From what?" Emily asked.

"From being bad," she specified. "Like, we've all made a crazy amount of mistakes and we're not even old enough to buy beer yet. It's kind of ridiculous."

"It's super ridiculous," Leah said. "It's just so hard to stop, though."

Kim shook her head. "Except it's not. It's really all on us to start being good again."

"Okay, so suddenly you're a saint," Leah said, her tone snappy. "Understood."

"It's not even about that," Emily piped up. "We've all gotta get our shit together, and not even just the external stuff, like finding better jobs or moving out. We should become better people. Get a conscience or something. Personally, I'm tired of being pregnant or arrested or constantly drunk."

"Except this isn't a communal pool of sins or whatever," Leah replied. "The issue is completely subjective. You guys can get good with God all you want, but—"

"But what?" Kim asked. "You don't wanna be better?"

"I just don't see the point in making it a big deal, that's all."

"So you've literally fucked your boss and currently plan to quit your job due to your own mistakes," Emily began, "but you have the nerve to have your pride popping this hard?"

"Nuh-nuh-no," Leah replied. "I just don't want to take it from the same approach as you guys. I don't have to nearly drown myself in order to prove I can swim."

"Well, you say you don't like arguing with people," Emily challenged. "I guess you'll just have to prove yourself to me and Kim that you'll stop sinning."

"You're on," Leah said. "I'll stop sinning, but just know this—I don't like to argue because I like to win instead."

"So a toast to no longer sinning?" Kim asked, raising her plastic cup of water.

Leah and Emily raised their cups in response. "Here's to newly established moral purity," Emily said.

"To purity," Leah echoed.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	53. LIII

_**A/N:** I do not own Twilight. My original plan for this chapter was pretty empty, so I expanded on something that was left open-ended the last time we saw them together. My four central characters (Leah, Jacob, Bella, and Paul) have all interacted, but in different ways. Leah x Paul have always been OG. Leah x Jacob are starkly different. Leah x Bella have also been OG in their own way. Bella x Jacob have gone through a lot with each other. Jacob x Paul are wildly different. But Bella x Paul? We've seen them interact only twice. I decided to change that, and I hope you enjoy what I've created. It's one of the lengthier chapters._

 _Also, did you see the new book cover for the story? I'm really proud of it, not gonna lie._

 _Enjoy._

 **LIII.**

 _if_ _i wasn't me, would you still feel me?_  
 _like on my worst day?_

* * *

Life for Bella Swan continued rather plainly after the car accident she had been in with Paul. She went to school at the Peninsula College, except she drove alone since neither Jacob nor Leah wanted anything to do with her. Then she went to work. She received more hours, too, but she wasn't crazy about it. A job was a job. All she did was go to school and go to work and not get into trouble with guys.

And somehow, this wasn't good enough for Charlie.

They were eating a dinner that she had prepared one Monday evening towards the end of January, and he was being testy for no reason whatsoever. Charlie was the type of man to usually remain unbothered, but he was so, _so_ bothered all of a sudden.

"So you want to go into teaching?" he began.

"Yeah, I think so," Bella replied absentmindedly. Work today had been a huge pain in the ass, and she'd even been puked on. Her mind and body were exhausted.

"Would you say this job is a stepping stone to where you want to be in life?"

She shrugged, her eyes down on her food. "I don't like little kids." That wasn't a full lie; she thought little kids were interesting and the condition of their upbringings was absolutely crucial, so it was her job to make sure they had the opportunity to grow into decent adults. But that still didn't mean they weren't gross.

Charlie was silent, and then he set down his fork. "Bells, what are you doing?"

She looked up. "I'm eating dinner…?"

"No, what are you _doing_? With your life?"

"Dad, I'm honestly just taking things one step at a time. All I do is go to school, then work, and then come home. I'm just chilling."

"You seem to just be hanging around," he accused.

"Excuse me?"

"That's what it looks like, kid."

Bella's tone became sharp. "How?"

"Back when you were out all the time," he began, "I hardly saw you, but at least you were active. I know you're out all the time now, but you seem bored."

"I don't understand what you want me to do," Bella replied. "I don't like partying that much. I literally just go to work and school and keep to myself, so it's super unfair for you to be unhappy with me doing that."

"But you don't even know what you want to do with your life yet."

"I'm not gonna figure it out by screwing around with Jacob or Leah or anyone else out there!" she exclaimed. "I can't believe you're telling me all this when this is probably the best I've ever been doing in my entire life."

"Maybe Jacob and Leah are good people for you," Charlie said, and Bella realized that she had never known how out of the loop he was.

"Jacob and Leah aren't good people, _period_ ," she practically shouted. "They hate me, Dad! And I hate them."

"Bells, I'm trying to help you," he said calmly. "I just want you to be okay. I know how you get when you're all alone—you get sad. I love how you're into working and getting an education, but I want you to be happy with what you're doing and who you're around. And besides, Jacob and Leah _are_ good people."

" _You've_ known them since they were kids. They don't like me. I don't like them. We're not some big happy family like you want us to be, Dad. And I get it—you don't want me to try to kill myself again. But they're not the solution. They're really not."

"You guys used to hang out a lot, though, just last month. I thought you were happy."

Bella groaned. "That was when I was still dating Jacob and when we had to go to the hospital, like, every night to see Sue. I didn't _want_ to be around them all the time." The last part was false; Leah and Bella had been on great terms then, and that was before Jacob had gone dull on Bella.

"Why do they hate you all of a sudden?"

"Dad, that's beside the point! You can't start a conversation with me asking what I wanna do with my life and suddenly have it revolve around Jacob and Leah. What, are they your kids now?"

"I asked _one_ question!" he exclaimed. "You can't accuse me of thinking they're my kids because I asked them why they hate you."

"Well, Jacob hates me because we broke up, I guess. Maybe I wasted his time or something, but me and him… we don't work out. And Leah has never liked me." _Also, I kind of fucked her ex-boyfriend at a party and she probably knows about it._

"I can't really fix the Leah part," he replied, "but do you want me to talk to Jake?"

"Don't waste your time," she said. "I don't want to be around him anymore."

"Did he hurt you?" he asked, his voice serious.

Bella was about to scream. She just took a deep breath instead. "No," she said curtly. "If anything, I really hurt _his_ feelings, but that's it."

Charlie leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "I guess it's better that you broke his feelings before I break his nose."

"I could probably do that, too." She trailed off. "But, anyway," she continued, "I don't know whether you want me to be good by keeping to myself, or be bad by wasting time with the rest of them. I don't know if you want me to get my life together, or have fun because you think I'm depressed. Just know that I'm taking care of business at my own pace instead of running off and getting married because I've got a baby on the way. I'm doing really well right now, and all I'm doing is minding my own business—you should try it."

Charlie was surprised at what Bella had just told him, but Bella was even more surprised with herself for packing a bag and leaving without turning back once.

* * *

Bella had some money saved up for things like this. She didn't like having to call up her stepfather for eight hundred dollars because she needed to run away. She wasn't running away from _anything_. She definitely wasn't running because she stole from and semi-cheated on her boyfriend. She didn't feel guilty. She just felt fed up.

She sat on the edge of the dingy motel room bed, flicking her lighter on and off, toying with it in her hands. The lighter was all she had since she had left home and escaped to this motel on the edge of town, besides her phone and a change of clothes and her vibrator. She'd left so fast that she hadn't even brought a book with her, and the box television in the room was mere static. Just like her. She heard a faint laugh track playing, but it quietly echoed. It taunted her.

The spark appeared and disappeared before her. It was dying. Regardless, Bella liked lighters more than anything she could light. She was strangely attracted to fire and heat—she'd been that way since she was a kid. She wasn't afraid of being burned or getting too hot. She absorbed it. A little heat never hurt anybody before.

She quickly ran her finger over the dying flame before she could feel it. She did that back and forth, a couple of times.

Bella always became attached to lighters, but never cigarettes. The little convenience store lighters she was attached to weren't good for blunts, but she would never, ever waste them on cigarettes. She was just like the rest of the people she knew: _I smoke weed, but cigarettes are disgusting._

Paul didn't care, though—Bella knew that, for sure. Paul smoked cigarettes like nobody's business. His old car, the one that Bella had wrecked, had _reeked_ of them. He hardly smelled like them too much, though. He had a very neutral smell, but the undertones of tobacco and peppermint still lingered.

Bella had found out—just like Leah had _years_ ago—that Paul smoked to look cool. He smoked after sex. He smoked when he was stressed. He smoked everywhere, and moments prior to them crashing into a truck, she had reprimanded him for smoking with her in the car. It was so disgustingly unfunny now. Who cared if Paul was a fake? Who cared if he would rather destroy his lungs and look cool rather than come off as even a little ordinary? The car crash had been very real, and maybe he was real, too, just for being able to stay so pretentious for so long.

She knew what he thought of her. A while ago, not long before she'd broken up with Jacob but not long after she'd stopped feeling him, Jacob had told Embry who had told Seth who had told Bella that Paul didn't like her for Jacob. And Bella hadn't given a portion of a fuck of what Paul had to say to her, partly because he didn't know her, partly because she didn't know him, and partly because it was none of his business. But it was interesting now how, even though Bella had managed to be a fuck toy for Jacob, she hadn't been the same for Paul at the New Year's Eve party. As if she had changed him. In that case, he was just as stupid as Jacob, and that was all Paul's fault.

Paul seemed to be happy in his egotism, though. Bella could assume that he'd been called out on it before, but he obviously kept going. Maybe she could dabble in it. It wouldn't hurt anybody but her, anyway. She'd already hurt her father just by being her.

Bella hadn't realized how late it was until she left the motel, and the cold air slapped her right in the face. It was always cold around this time of year, but it was so late now that warmth just didn't exist.

The heater in Bella's truck stopped working a long time ago, so she now drove with a quilt over her lap. She didn't know where she was going, but she lived for the red lights, in which she could rub her hands together under the quilt and feel a little less dead.

The night was dead silent. Her radio had turned to static, so she had given up on music altogether. All that reached her ears was the rumble of her truck.

She stopped driving when she ran out of gas, which didn't take very long. She still seemed to be in the middle of nowhere when her gas light came on and she pulled into a gas station that was lit up like a Christmas tree.

It didn't seem to be that sketchy, but at the same time, Bella didn't really care. She walked right in and went to the counter, where a strung-out white boy with long hair sat on a stool, collecting dust.

Bella ran a hand through her hair and slid a crumpled up twenty dollar bill to him, waking him up. "Twenty on pump eight?"

"Yeah, yeah, no problem," the cashier replied.

A brown hand suddenly slid another bill onto the counter. Bella turned, and it was none other than Paul.

"Make it forty," he added.

"Alright," said the cashier. "Anything else?"

Bella turned to Paul. "Newport or Marlboro?" She couldn't remember what he liked for the life of her.

"Marlboro."

Bella slid over a ten dollar bill, and the cashier handed her the pack without even asking for ID. That was how she knew she was in the middle of nowhere.

Bella and Paul went back out to the cold, and she filled up her tank. Leaning against the front door, Paul lit up, the flame temporarily illuminating his face. She'd never noticed his intricate bone structure like that before.

"You're gonna kill us," she said. "You're actually gonna kill us."

"Not yet," he replied, finally exhaling after a long drag.

"Not smoking at a gas station is, like, the biggest rule there is, Paul."

"Fuck a rule."

And suddenly, she didn't know why she even cared about the rules to begin with.

Her eyes wandered away from the smoke, and she realized that there were only two other cars at the station. "Which car's yours?" she asked him.

"Definitely not the busted little red one," he replied.

Bella snorted. "So the busted little blue one?"

He nodded. "Yeah, she's a beaut. Not quite the pimp mobile, but I'll live."

"I said I was sorry!" she said. "You're never gonna live that down, are you?"

His tone was slick—almost too slick. "You almost killing me on our first date?" he replied. "Never."

"What are you doing out here, anyway?" she asked.

"I needed to clear my head, so I just started driving. I don't know. What about you? It's a little dangerous for a pretty white girl like you to be out here by yourself."

Her eyebrows jumped. "Well, I wouldn't worry about it if I were you," she said, "since I'm not worth shit, remember?"

"Hey, hey, hey, where'd you pick up on that?"

"I'm not as stupid as you think I am, you know," she muttered.

"What do you mean?" His voice was hard.

She just looked at the gas pump ticking up, up, up. It was at thirty-two dollars now. Smoke blew past her face.

"C'mon, what gives?" he asked.

"You don't know me well enough to be calling me worthless and saying I ain't shit," she said, still not looking at him. "You don't know the first thing about me."

"Okay, but I ate your pussy."

She shrugged. "But can you say you know my middle name?"

 _Click._ The gas stopped running the moment it hit forty dollars.

"Old Jacob does, right?" he asked, his voice quiet. "I bet he knows you inside and out."

She removed the pump and put the gas cap back on. He blew more smoke in her direction, and she knew it was on purpose this time.

"Yes, he does," she finally replied.

He had a wolfish grin. "Okay, Bella _Elizabeth._ Or _Ann_. How about _Marie?_ "

"Marie."

"Bella Marie Swan," he said. "That's pretty."

"For a pretty white girl like me?" she asked, playing along. She didn't usually like guys like him—she wasn't sure if she liked him at all.

"As pretty and white as snow."

"So what do you want?" she asked. "Because I've got places to go and I don't think we're exactly friends."

"I wanna be friends," he said. "I mean, since I just figured out your middle name and all. I know the first thing about you now."

"Paul," she said. "It's cold as fuck out here."

"Then come on, baby girl," he replied. "I'll keep you warm."

* * *

They ended up sitting down on a cold merry-go-round in a playground, hip to hip. Bella stared down at her swinging legs. Paul lit another cigarette.

"I'm sorry for talking all that shit about you to Jacob," he said.

"It's okay," she said, even though it wasn't. "It was probably true."

"He's a real sorry motherfucker. He spends too much time trying to be somebody else."

"I didn't think I was saving his life by being with him," she replied. "I just wanted to have fun."

"Fair enough."

"Have you ever been with a white girl before?"

He shrugged. "Sure."

"What do you mean?"

"You're not a special breed or anything. There's a lot of you out there."

She chuckled. "Damn, I thought I was special. I'm a Virgo, you know."

He smiled, and his teeth were bright even in the pitch blackness. "I know for damn sure that you're not a virgin."

"I know that, too. I said I'm a Virgo. Like, the zodiac sign."

"You believe in that shit?"

"It's all real, you know."

He chuckled. "Yeah. Okay."

"Well, have you been with someone like me before?" she wondered.

"White girl with ass for days? Nah. Only you."

"That's actually kind of rude."

"My bad."

"You're not even sorry."

"I know."

They laughed.

"You're a real asshole," she told him.

"So I've heard."

"No, but seriously, you are. The first things guys—and girls, too—ever mention about me is my ass. Like, 'Oh, you mean Bella with the big ass?' Not 'Bella with the brown eyes' or 'Bella who reads books.' Always 'Bella with the big ass.'"

"Do you get offended when people think of you like that?" he asked.

"I used to," she admitted, "but I don't really care. It's been like that since I was, like, fifteen. I'm all hips, anyway."

He laughed.

"Really, though," she said. "I just wish I wasn't known for that. I kind of wish I was Native."

"Why?"

"Because then I wouldn't be boring."

"Damn, Jacob would have _loved_ to hear that," he scoffed. "His brown ass would finally feel so special."

"Jacob doesn't see race."

"Jacob's a fucking pussy, that's why. But enough about him. Why do you want to be Native so bad?"

"I don't know. You guys just have a lot of history. And I get that it's constantly being erased and destroyed by white people, but still. You guys have been through a lot. It's admirable to see how resilient you are."

"You just sound like you wanna be oppressed so bad."

"Why do you always argue with people?" she demanded.

"I'm not arguing. I'm not Leah."

"Leave her out of this."

"Okay."

Their silence was filled with the subtle squeaking of the merry-go-round as her legs continued to swing.

"You've got a lot of big words to say," he said. "And big ideas. Now tell me, what are you doing out here, this late, all alone?"

"I had to run away. My dad was being a dick."

"I've run away before," he said. "What'd _your_ pops do?"

"Nothing crazy. Just got on my nerves. Yours?"

"Mine was fucking nuts. He beat my ass."

"I heard about that."

"Then I beat his ass."

"I heard about that, too."

"Really, now?"

"Paul, you're a legend."

"You're shitting me."

She giggled. "Yeah."

"Shit, Bella, you play too much."

"Yeah, I do. It's kind of becoming a problem now."

"What do you mean by that?" He rubbed out his cigarette onto the merry-go-round.

"I mean..." She sighed. "Everybody hates me right now."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"It's not even your fault."

"I know. I'm still sorry, though. I get how you're feeling, though."

"I've just never felt this hated before."

"You fucked up. Shit happens." Then he paused. "You know how I stop thinking about it?" he asked.

"How?"

He handed her a Marlboro. "Have a smoke."

"I don't like smoking."

"Just try one."

She put it between her lips and took her lighter out of her pocket. She tried to ignite it, but it was just useless, pathetic sparks. It was dead. "I'm out."

"Hey, hey—don't worry about it." Then he lit it for her with his own lighter. It was fake-deep and fake-romantic.

She removed it from her mouth and started coughing immediately.

"There," he said. "At least you're thinking about how your lungs are dying instead of everyone hating you."

"Shut _up_ ," she replied. "That didn't help at all."

"Well, shit—at least I tried."

They were silent for a little while longer, and he got started on her cigarette.

"Hey, Paul," she said in a near whisper.

"Yeah?"

"Don't be like everyone else."

"After our first date? Nah."

"I'm still sorry for all that," she replied. "I think I have a problem. I almost killed two people within six months of each other."

"Shit happens," he said again. "But I don't hate you."

"Because you ate my pussy, right?"

"Partly. But partly because you're an alright person, too."

"Do you think we can just be friends after that?" she wondered.

"Yeah." Then he pondered on that. "Yeah," he repeated. "We don't have to link up just because I ate your pussy or just because we almost died together."

"That works," she agreed.

"Yeah, that works. You're good to talk to, you know that?"

"You, too, Paul."

"But can you do something for me, Bella?" Her name rolled off his tongue like water.

"Yeah?"

"Stay alright."

* * *

Bella returned to her motel alone that morning, and it didn't feel wrong.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks as always. The next chapter has a little throwback to something else I've written, but it's gonna be better, I promise._

 _Thoughts?_

 _HS_


	54. LIV

_**A/N:** First off, I don't own the Twilight Saga. Also, if you didn't read the last chapter, GO BACK. I know I'm updating quickly._

 _So anyway, here is chapter 54 of Static. I will admit, writing this chapter was a challenge. Even though the first part was adapted from an old fanfic of mine, My Best Days (2013, holy shit!), I still didn't know what to do. Last chapter, I didn't plan on having Paul come into Bella's picture, but I'm glad I did. I would feel wrong for leaving him out of the picture this chapter, too._

 _My Best Days was originally going to be a part of Static, but at a very different point in the story, and at a point that really didn't mean anything. The narrative Bella (pre-flashback) of that Static and the Bella of this one are pretty different people. But still, I wanted to touch upon Bella more, especially in her mental illness that she's been living with for the entirety of this story, whether you've noticed or not. The hardest part about writing Static (among many hard parts) is that even though the story is in the 3rd person, I always have to be in my character's heads. Their issues cannot go unnoticed for too long. And if you're a hardcore Emily fan, you're probably wondering why this rule of mine doesn't apply to her. Believe me, though, it does. Emily is just not one of the main characters._

 _Rambling aside, here is chapter 54 of Static. I was in a weird place while writing it, and the formatting is kind of weird since it has a big flashback right in the middle, but in the end, I hope it gives off the intended intimate effect I was going for. This story means a lot to me, and hopefully you'll see that._

 _Warning: this chapter contains mentions of rape and domestic violence._

 _Enjoy._

 **LIV.**

 _it's all happening_

* * *

It was the moments like these when Bella wished she wasn't such a fucking klutz. She'd been one all her life, but it was just _killing_ her now. Life shouldn't have to be this embarrassing for her. She shouldn't have to embarrass herself _in front of_ herself. That was an all-new low, and today was clearly not one of her best days.

She wouldn't have dropped it if her hands hadn't been so damn sweaty. _It_ being a bottle of vodka that Paul had swung by for her this morning. He was a good friend. They would be good friends.

But still, she wasn't okay. She was far from it. Her hands were perspiring, her heart was racing, and her head was spinning. It was all too much. _Too much, too much, too much._ The worst thing about this was that she wasn't even hot. Her insides were burning like she had just run a mile, but on the outside, she was cold. She was a fucking ice cube in an igloo in the middle of Antarctica but also in hell.

 _I'm going to fucking die._

Or no, maybe being cold and sweating wasn't the _worst_ thing—maybe the worst thing was that she had spilled the last half of a bottle of vodka onto the carpet of the motel room, and she would never, ever get it back unless she put her tongue to the carpet and committed a desperate act. She would. _Oh, man_ , she would, but she couldn't move. She could barely breathe. Was she even thinking? Maybe a ghost of her was thinking. Maybe she was having a grand old time in this useless, screwed-up head of hers.

 _Maybe I'm already dead._

But why was she hurting so much? This wasn't what she signed up for.

Her anxiety was acting up again. She didn't like to think of it as an attack because this was truly all on her. Nothing was attacking her besides her own brain. Her anxiety had never really disappeared, just like her depression. They had just been sitting idly, minding their own business. But she fucked up today—she fucked up bad. This was not one of her best days.

Back in Phoenix, before she'd started flushing her old pills down the toilet because she was tired of feeling senile, her old therapist had taught her about the AWARE method of getting through attacks like this, but Bella was such an idiot that she was embarrassing myself even further. She was supposed to use this clever little acronym before the attack set in, before the storm came rolling in. She was supposed to _accept_ the anxiety, be _watchful_ of the level she was at, _act_ normally, _repeat_ the steps, and _expect_ the best. That was supposed to make her _aware_.

And she'd accepted it. (She was going to die.) She'd watched it. (She was at an 8.) She'd acted normally about it. (Until she wasted the vodka that Paul had so kindly scavenged for her.) She'd tried to repeat the steps to get through it. (But there was no vodka left.) She was expecting the best out of it. (It was a shitty expectation.) She was aware. She was perfectly aware that this was bullshit and she couldn't breathe and nothing was okay. This wasn't one of her best days; this day was absolute shit. It was only ten-thirty in the morning and she'd managed to embarrass herself.

Trying to focus on controlling her breathing, she thought of the days that hadn't been so bad.

Even her best days without Edward Cullen were nothing in comparison to the worst ones _with_ him. Even though today she hated his guts, hated his ugly words and his ugly face and his uglier habits, he had been something else back then. He could have been the worst and still have been the best. That was a given. That was also why he was attending Dartmouth and she wasn't, and why she was having an anxiety attack in a fucking motel room in Forks and he wasn't, and why she was hanging onto a heartbeat that was going too fast and he definitely wasn't. He had been divine. He had been perfect.

Lucifer had once been an angel, too.

She couldn't believe she was still surprised at Edward's betrayal of her.

The attack was supposed to peak by now. It was supposed to have Bella screaming on the inside, wanting to burst from her own body and mind, wanting to not only die but to disappear. There was going to be a moment where she didn't feel like she was breaking, but that she was already broken. She hadn't gotten there yet, but she was waiting and she hated it. That was the worst part of an anxiety attack: waiting for the anxiety to peak just so she could know she was at least halfway there. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the insanity continued to dance around her vision.

She gave up on controlling her breathing and inhaled only to hold it in as long as she could. _It_ as in her breath, her last bit of sanity. And there was nothing. Nothing at all but—

But—

Silence.

(Mostly.)

 _Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump._

With a beating in the background.

 _Th-thump, th-thump, th-thump._

She could count backward from one hundred—no, she _should_ count backward from one hundred, by threes. She should recite the presidents, recite her favorite song, her favorite poem if she had any. She should do a lot of things, but she couldn't—

 _Ththumpththumpththumpththumpththump._

—remember her heart beating this fast in a while. Or she didn't choose to remember the last time. The last time she could think of her heart threatening to burst out of her chest was when she had first met Edward, or bumped into him, really. She'd always found it wildly cheesy when people said they met the love of their life by bumping into them, mostly because it sounded fake, but that was really how they had met.

It had really all begun when Mike Newton had asked her, "What are you doing tonight?"

It was her first summer in Forks since she'd been little, and she was just fifteen. She would be sixteen in September, and she was still in surprise at her being able to snag a job at the Newtons' Outfitters store in town. She hadn't been especially likable back then (assuming she was somewhat likable now), but she rolled with it.

She smiled politely, not showing her teeth. She knew he liked her, but she wasn't focused on boys. Just the April before, she had been diagnosed with a panic disorder and major depressive disorder, and she didn't want to somehow project that onto others. It was June now, and she hadn't changed her mind about that. _She_ didn't even like herself; why would she let someone else try to do that? It was selfish.

"No," she finally told Mike. "I'm not doing anything. What did you have in mind?"

"There's a party going on," he said. "It's gonna be massive. A sweet sixteen."

"Whose party is it?" she wondered. She didn't know anybody in town besides Mike and a couple other employees at the store, but it wouldn't hurt to ask in case some shit went down.

"A rich kid," Mike said. "Filthy rich. His name's Edward Cullen and he goes to a private boarding school in Oregon during the school year, but he comes home every summer since his family lives around here."

"You're an insider," she observed.

"Nah, that's my mom. They're our best customers once they go camping the second Edward's home for the summer. So, anyway, his party's tonight. He always throws parties, but get this: this one's a masquerade."

Bella wasn't a party-crasher. She didn't go to parties, period. "Okay," she said. "Are you crashing?"

"I think I have a better idea."

"And what would that be?"

" _We're_ crashing."

She bit her lower lip and thought about it briefly. She _did_ want to remain friends with Mike even though he was one of the small-town kids that she didn't care about, but—who was she kidding? What would she do at home tonight, anyway? Wallow in her sadness a little more? She could certainly try to crash a rich kid's party, and even if she didn't like it, she wouldn't have to try it again. She could do it. She could give it a shot.

"Okay," she told Mike in agreement. "I'll go."

His smile was so big that she couldn't help but smile back. "Yes!" he said excitedly. He could almost hug her. "It's gonna be so much fun."

"The crashing or the party?" she asked.

"Both," he promised. "Definitely both."

Wearing a cheap red mask from the party store and a plain black dress she had only worn once (when she had first tried to kill herself), she told Charlie she would be spending the night at Jessica Stanley's house. It was a plausible lie since the girls sort of knew each other but not all that well. Bella eventually went with Mike and his friend Eric to raise a little hell and have a little fun. They were on bicycles, and Eric had brought his younger brother's bicycle for her to use. Pedaling into the night, her illnesses were the least of her worries. She almost felt normal.

The Cullens' house was deep in the woods, and wearing a mask in the darkness didn't do much for her vision. It took a while for Mike, Eric, and Bella to arrive at the party, but once they got there, they hopped in with a large crowd that was already entering. Pressed up against strangers, Bella focused on getting in successfully. It wouldn't be hard to. She had a mask on. She was dressed up. She was nobody and somebody at the same time.

Bella had never attended a party, but this had to be a prime example of one. It wasn't a sloppy teen party; she didn't see anybody throwing up or knocking over anything. This was a masquerade. This was _classy_. She suddenly felt like a sore thumb, sticking out in her barely-passing dress and cheap, plastic mask. The party also didn't feel like a sweet sixteen at all. She'd watched enough MTV to recognize a sweet sixteen—especially one thrown by someone as rich as Edward Cullen. Who _was_ Edward Cullen, anyway, besides a spoiled boarding school kid who still managed to know people from his hometown who would celebrate his birthday with him? From all she'd heard, he was starting to sound fictional.

She'd spent most of the night with Mike and Eric, and at one point, she'd found an open bathroom that happened to be upstairs. She hadn't had to walk through any bedrooms, thank God, but once she got to that bathroom, she realized she didn't even have to go; she just needed to get a sense of mind. Then again, it was kind of hard to retrieve something she didn't have.

This had been a bad idea. Making rash decisions had never been good for her, and this was one of them.

She needed to breathe. She needed to breathe and get it together before things got really bad. She definitely needed to go home, but she'd taken a bicycle. She had also left said bicycle in the woods with her partners in crime, and there would be no way to find it without them.

She was stuck.

Once that settled in, she discovered another thing.

She was lost. Lost in a tight, limited place.

She was sitting on a toilet cover in a big bathroom at a party meant for the beautiful, her face in her hands, barely breathing, regretful, stupid, and—

 _Not alone._

There were seven knocks on the door, and she quickly got up to get herself together.

"I'm sorry," she called to the person on the other side of the door. It was the easiest thing to say; she was always sorry. "I'll be out in a second, I just—" Her sentence broke off. "I'm sorry," she repeated.

Without looking in the long mirror, she smoothed out her dress and adjusted her mask. Her hands were shaking and her heart was beating so fast that it pulsed in her ears, louder than the music playing downstairs, louder than her thoughts. Her palms were so sweaty she was afraid she wouldn't be able to open the door, which would have been overly embarrassing.

But she did open the door. She did. And she tried to dash out without having to look at the person she'd kept waiting only to bump right into them. Her clumsiness always prevailed. She was short, and she didn't meet another pair of eyes; she met a chest, and from the firmness she'd felt only so briefly, it had to be a guy.

She finally looked up, and it was.

He was pale and had bronze hair. He also wore a black tuxedo like every other guy at the party, only he wore a black shirt and red tie. His mask was black and red, and it looked something Bella could buy with maybe seventeen paychecks if it was on sale. If she had seen someone like him at this party before, then she'd forgotten, which would be impossible. This guy was Edward Cullen, and he looked down at her with a crooked half-smile that whispered _danger_ and _go back now._

Bella told him, "I'm so sorry," at the same time that he said, "How original."

"What?" she asked, standing still. "What's original?"

"Juliet crashing Romeo's party," he said. "That's _really_ original."

"My name's not even Juliet," she blurted out before she realized what he was referring to. "And that analogy was super cheesy. My name's Bella."

"And mine is Edward," he told her, "but it's not like it matters. I don't think I know you, Bella."

 _Shit._ "Don't you?" she asked, trying to not blow it. "I mean, you invited me."

"Quite frankly, I wouldn't invite someone who got their mask from somewhere as cheap as the Thriftway."

Either her heart was beating so hard she couldn't feel it or it had stopped completely. She felt myself blush, and then she took a deep breath. "So I crashed your party," Bella admitted. "I'll leave as soon as you let me out of your way."

"Oh, I'm not kicking you out," Edward said. "People crash my parties all the time. How do you like it?"

She resented his confidence. Second by second, she resented him more and more than was necessary, but she couldn't stop playing along. "I don't," she replied honestly. "I don't like it at all."

"Well, what's wrong with it?"

"The food isn't that good, everyone looks bored, and the music is straight garbage. I've been to funerals more fun than this party."

"I appreciate your honesty," he said.

"Why?"

"My mom organizes these sorts of things. I don't like them that much. At least someone else doesn't."

Refusing to let him in any further, she said, "That's too bad."

"Ouch," he said. "I thought you'd at least have some sympathy."

"I'm not a sympathetic person."

"You know what, Bella?"

She didn't understand him at all. "What, Edward?"

"Neither am I."

Slowly, carefully, he put his hand to her jaw, and she didn't stop him. She wasn't freaking out anymore. She couldn't feel her heartbeat, but she wasn't freaking out. She didn't feel hopeless, either. She didn't feel anything at all.

Edward subtly cocked his head to the side, and then ever so slightly brought his lips down to hers in one move, like he'd been doing this all his life. She could believe it. She inhaled sharply, and then let herself feel them together. She didn't know whether this was right or wrong.

She didn't know anything.

He then pulled away, much too soon, and she gasped and stumbled back into the bathroom. He shut the door behind him and hoisted her up on the counter where they would be a little more level with each other. He was tall. He had to be at least six feet. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her dress coming up a bit, and put her fingers in his soft hair. He didn't kiss her again; he only stared at her as she waited for him to do something, and she could see that, through his mask, his eyes were green.

"Let me see you," he commanded.

"I'm right here," she replied.

"No. The mask is in the way."

"Do… do you, really?" she asked.

He nodded, and with that, she pulled off her mask. She could see him better, but she still couldn't see all of him.

He didn't say anything. He must have been stunned at her plainness.

"I'm sorry," I said. It was the only thing she could say; she was like a little doll. Pull the string and she would sulk about muttering, _I'm sorry._

" _Sorry_?" he asked. "Why would you be sorry?"

"I just—"

"Bella, you are exquisite."

Then Edward kissed her again. He was kissing her. A boy was actually kissing her. For the moment, she didn't want to be dead anymore. She felt like a normal girl with a normal brain.

Again, too soon, Edward pulled away and straightened up. She stared at him, her legs hanging cold off the counter. Wasn't she supposed to see him, too? She'd given him something; wasn't he supposed to reciprocate the action? She would later come to learn that this was just his behavior. He would take as long as he could without giving, and once he did give, he would expect something in return.

He gave her that crooked smile again and made his way to the door. He swung it open and looked back at her over the shoulder. He told her, "I'll meet you again, Bella."

Then he was gone. _That fucker._

Bella still hadn't liked herself; she'd hated everything about herself. And maybe Edward hadn't ever liked her, either. But maybe that had been the key to their relationship of over three years: she hadn't liked her, and he hadn't liked her, but they had both been in absolute love with him.

That had been one of her best days.

She opened her eyes and she was in the motel room. She exhaled. She was not fifteen anymore; she was twenty. She had gone to hell and back with Edward Cullen, and while her life wasn't ideal right now, it wasn't the worst.

Her anxiety attack couldn't be over already, though. It was only paused. That was the thing about Edward: he had never calmed her down or made the anxiety or even the depression go away; he had only paused it—froze it in the middle and made her forget that it was all happening.

Cold sweat dripped off the edge of her nose and onto the dirty carpet with the vodka. _Disgusting._

The chills she got were starting to make my stomach hurt, too. She was shuddering and convulsing so bad that she could feel the vodka coming up her throat, and it wasn't even her imagination. She swallowed it back down. _Fucking disgusting._

On some of her worst days, she would throw up. At least it hadn't come down to that—yet. She should be happy. She should be grateful for the normal.

It was pretty awful how the memory of a monster like Edward could make Bella calm down, even a little bit. She didn't want to see him ever again, and she hated herself for even thinking of him. Yes, she had come crawling back to him a couple of times, sober or not, willing to trust or not, but it didn't mean anything anymore.

Bella wished that she had never known him.

As her throat began to open up a little more and she could breathe a little easier, she started to think about how different her life would be if she hadn't crashed Edward's party, if he hadn't crashed her life. She probably wouldn't get high so often or enjoy getting high at all. She probably wouldn't like alcohol so much. She probably wouldn't be so weird about sex. She would probably have friends—real friends she didn't conveniently call up just to cover for her shitty mistakes—and would probably know how to make friends.

If Edward hadn't been around, she might not have been raped by someone she thought she trusted. She might not have been robbed countless times. She might not be a victim of domestic violence. She might not wake up every morning wishing she was dead, either. And even worse, without Edward, she might just know a little something about self-worth.

So she took it back. Her worst days with Edward Cullen had been hell. And she couldn't think of her best days right now—only the repercussions—but at least he hadn't been a part of them. She could pride herself on that one.

An hour later, Bella called up Sunshine Childcare. She told her boss, Lisa, that she had to stay home sick. The place was so understaffed that Lisa couldn't even be mad at Bella in the moment. If anything, Bella felt worse for the kids. Some of them adored her and looked forward to seeing her every day.

Five minutes after that, Bella called up Paul. She'd heard a lot about him, especially in the form of complaints. Leah, who always claimed to know Paul better than anybody else (as if knowing someone since the dawn of time deserved a prize), found Paul to be _wild._ _Careless_. _Asshole_ was second place to the universal _full of shit_. Jacob was really similar to Leah in his opinion of Paul, except his word of choice was _annoying._ Bella supposed he had less history with the guy.

Bella didn't like gossip. Being the topic of a lot of shit-talk around here, it had no value to her. Talk was cheap, and she would rather see the truth in someone herself before hearing the biased reviews of them. Living in the badlands, the thing she knew the most about the people here was that they were bored, and that they were always stirring the pot.

So she called up Paul to get her own opinion of him. Leah and Jacob and everyone else always made him out to be unavailable, both verbally and emotionally, but maybe Bella was different to him. He was at her motel room in a matter of minutes.

"I know I'm asking a lot for someone who almost killed you," she said the moment she opened the door, "but can I have one more thing?"

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Your time."

* * *

"This Edward guy _does_ sound like a dickbag," Paul said, "but why'd you guys finally break up?"

"Which time?"

"Last time."

They laid shoulder to shoulder next to each other on the vodka-soaked floor, staring up at the plain beige ceiling of the motel room as they kept their hands to themselves.

"Because we were finally through," she said. "I guess after he beat my ass and took all my money, he decided I wasn't worth it anymore. We weren't really together at the time, anyway, but he acted like I owed him something."

"For getting you and Leah and them out of jail," he assumed.

She nodded. "Yeah. He always acts like I owe him whenever he does something for me. Like when he raped me"—the words sounded wrong finally leaving her head—"he thought I owed him sex for taking me out that night."

"Over a fucking ring."

"Over a _fucking ring_ ," she emphasized.

"Bella?"

"Mm-hmm?"

"Was I the first person you told?"

"About being raped or about being beaten?"

"Both. Either," he clarified.

She tried to blink back the tears. "Yes," she said.

"Why?" he asked.

"I guess I've never had an actual friend to confide in before." She paused. "I guess I took advantage. I'm sorry."

"Quit being sorry," Paul said. "I've never had friends, either." He could hardly admit to himself that he was embarrassed.

"Why?" she asked.

"I guess I'm not around that much. People forget about me all the time."

"I won't forget about you," she promised. "As long as you don't stop being my friend."

"We're friends, Bella," he told her. "We're friends."

They were silent, but it wasn't awkward.

"Why aren't you scared of me?" he began. "Besides the fact that I'm your only friend."

"What do you mean?"

"Your ex-boyfriend beat you up, but now you wanna be friends with a guy who beat up his own dad."

"Because..." She took in a deep breath. "Because I know it was for the right reasons. Also, I know that you wouldn't wanna beat up your only friend."

"Okay."

"Was that good enough?"

"I was expecting something a little more sappy," he admitted, "but that's good for now."

" _Please_. You don't even know me."

"You're always telling somebody they don't know you, Bella. Who actually _does_ know you?"

"You're that curious?"

"Yeah."

"Nobody really knows me," she said. "Shit, _I_ don't even know me. But you—you know the most about me."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"I'm so fucking glad we're friends."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** The chapter was a bit long and I'm sorry about that, but thanks as always for reading. Up next: more with Kim. I'll try to update quickly._

 _Thoughts?_

 _HS_


	55. LV

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. I never have, and I probably never will._

 _So even though I have a very, very detailed plot line of this story chapter by chapter, moment by moment, I've been suffering from writer's block like no other. It's sad, really. This chapter isn't my proudest, probably because it took some easing into. And to be fair, it might take some easing into for you as well since it's so different from the last chapter. Bella is a very mutable, adaptive person. You'll see. Thank you for the patience._

 _Enjoy._

 **LV.**

 _and it's not just my pride_  
 _it's just till these tears have dried_

* * *

"Thanks for making things right, kid," Charlie told Bella as he helped carry her bed frame up the stairs to Kim's condo.

"No problem," Bella replied.

They had just gotten up the second set of stairs when Charlie asked, "Jesus, which floor is she on again?"

"Fourth floor," Kim called from behind them as she carried two cardboard boxes of Bella's belongings.

"Thanks, Kim," Charlie said.

"No problem, chief."

It was Thursday evening now, just two days after Bella had moved into the motel, and she'd quickly gotten her shit together. Living with Charlie clearly wouldn't work now (even though he wasn't that mad at her anymore) and the motel made her feel so dirty that the hot showers couldn't wash the grime away.

For someone who didn't know how to make friends, Bella had won over Kim pretty fast. They only had one real rule: if Bella were to live there, she would have to help pay bills. It was lucky how the only thing she could really keep was a job.

Bella didn't have a lot of things to move into Kim's house, since most of her belongings were actually still in Arizona, or Florida now, and she didn't have many things, anyway. The move-in process hadn't been too hard. Once Bella set her bed into the same room as Kim's, she felt a little cramped but comfortable. It was the move she needed.

"So what's for dinner, baby girl?" Bella asked, finally sitting down for the first time in hours.

Kim glanced down at her watch. "Oh, crap, I totally forgot to tell them," she said. "Carmen and Tanya—the neighbors—invited me for dinner tonight, like, last week and I failed to mention the fact that I was helping you move in."

"It's fine, I guess," Bella replied. "It's not like you knew last week that you'd be moving in."

"Yeah, true. I'll just go over next door and let them know I'm not coming—"

Bella got up. "I'll come, too. I should probably meet them eventually."

They left the condo and went to the door directly to the left of them. Kim knocked on the door and Tanya answered promptly.

"Oh, hello, Kim," Tanya greeted her, her voice warm. "I was just about to go over and ask if you were still coming over for dinner."

"Yeah, sorry, I don't think I can make it," Kim replied, and Bella could tell that the strawberry blonde made her nervous. "You see, uh, I have a roommate now." She gestured to Bella. "This is Bella."

Tanya shook Bella's hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Bella," she said. "I'm Tanya."

"Nice to meet you, too," Bella said politely.

Tanya then turned around and called out, "Carmen, our guests are here!"

"Oh, we don't wanna inconvenience you," Kim said, visibly sorry. "I didn't even tell you Bella was moving in until now."

"The more, the merrier," Tanya replied. "Come in, come in." She gently tugged on Kim and Bella's wrists.

Kim had experienced a few dinners with Tanya and Carmen, and every time she met up with them, it was reminiscent of the first time she met them. It was less awkward, or maybe she had become numb to them, but Kim was in love with Carmen and Tanya's love. When she had first met them, it had seemed that Tanya was the more reserved, possessive one, but she was actually outgoing and easy to talk to. Carmen was quiet, and she perceived things rather than judged them.

They were always comfortable, and the amount of comfort they shared didn't cease when they had dinner with Kim and Bella. Tanya frequently expressed affection to Carmen in subtle touches, whether it was under the table or on top of it. The love was expressed in a minimal way, but it was there and they weren't ashamed. Kim often found herself staring dreamily at them in a way that was also envious. She could only imagine herself so out and so open, so unashamed to love a woman in front of others. She wanted to be loved as confidently as them. Most importantly, she wanted _to_ love as hard as they could.

"So what is your profession, Bella?" Carmen asked across the rectangular table, over spaghetti bolognese. "If you don't mind."

"I don't mind," Bella replied, her tone bright. "I work in childcare—at a daycare, actually."

"Do you enjoy it?" Tanya asked.

"I always say I don't like kids, but they're interesting. I care about how they're brought up—I think that's really important."

"That's so nice," Carmen said. "Sometimes I wish I cared about kids." She laughed.

"I wouldn't worry about that," Tanya said to Carmen with a sly smile.

"What do you guys do?" Bella asked. Kim realized just then that she had never even learned about Tanya and Carmen's respective jobs.

"We're travel photographers," Tanya said. Then she glanced at Carmen. "Well, _she_ has all the talent. I'm just her muse sometimes."

"Don't listen to her," Carmen said. "She's brilliant."

"That is _so_ cool," Bella mused. "Where have you been?"

"We went to Osaka, Japan..." Carmen began.

"Last month," Tanya finished. "We've also been to France a couple times—Nice is our favorite—as well as London and Amsterdam. Our favorite city is Dubai, though."

"Wow," Bella said, her hand cupped in her chin. "And I thought I was special for visiting all but three of the fifty states."

"Alaska, Hawaii, and…?" Carmen prompted.

"No, I've been to Hawaii. It was Alaska, Nebraska, and West Virginia. My mom always used to say we'd get around to them. I don't think she really meant it."

Tanya smiled. "Maybe you could join us overseas someday. We could always use another crew member."

Bella smiled back. "Yeah, maybe."

Kim had never felt like such a third wheel in a group of four people.

It was like Tanya read her mind, though. "You too, Kim," she said. "You're also invited."

"Thanks, Tanya."

Kim sank into her spaghetti bolognese, unnoticed.

* * *

Dinner had turned into dessert, which had turned into a wine-fueled fest of story exchanging, mostly on the photographers' end since they led lives that Bella and Kim were too broke or scared to live.

The new roommates didn't get back to their condo until ten-thirty that night, where Bella unhooked her own bra the second she entered and flung it halfway to the living room.

"Baby girl, we have our _own place_ ," she said, her voice awestruck and slow.

Kim, who wasn't even slightly tipsy since she planned on never drinking again, slipped off her flats and kicked them aside.

Bella tried to slip out of her Chuck Taylors, but they were tied too tight. She began to stumble, and Kim caught her.

"Jesus, Bella," she said as she helped her to her feet, "you're a hot-ass mess."

"Thanks, baby girl," Bella said. Once she regained her balance, she threw her top off and started to head to the bedroom, where she stumbled again at the doorway. Kim knew she would feel awful about it later, but she had never noticed how nice Bella's boobs really were.

Kim caught her before she could faceplant into the carpet. "Alright, no more wine for you."

"Okay, okay."

Bella crashed into Kim's bed instead of her own, and her body became comfortable—and heavy. There was nothing Kim could do.

"Um, wrong bed," Kim said.

Bella didn't respond.

Kim poked her in the side. "Get up," she said. "You've got work tomorrow."

Still nothing.

"Bella, if you puke in my bed, I'll kill you," Kim warned. "I'll actually kill you."

Bella drunkenly pulled Kim by the hair, bringing her close. She brought her so close that Kim was bent forward and their top halves were attached, and Kim's bottom half was off the bed entirely. Kim could nearly taste the wine on Bella's breath, strong and sour.

"Shh," Bella whispered. "You're yelling."

" _You're_ wasted."

"You're my favorite, you know that? You know that, baby girl?"

Kim tried to pull away, but Bella's hand in her hair was a vice. "You're gonna pull all my hair out," she mumbled. "And why do you call me 'baby girl?'"

Bella giggled. "'Cause you're cute as hell."

"You're wasted," Kim repeated. "Okay? Go to sleep."

Bella finally let go of Kim's hair and turned over to her side, tucking her own hair behind her ear. Kim began to get up, but Bella caught a hold of her once again.

"Tanya and Carmen," she murmured to Kate. "I like them."

Kim smiled. "Me, too. Now go to bed."

Bella let go once and for all. "Love you long time," she called as Kim began to leave the room in order to go turn off the lights in the entryway.

"You, too," she said so quietly that nobody could hear her.

* * *

The next morning, Bella woke up with a hangover the size of Seattle. The only thing that made it better was that she immediately smelled bacon.

She pulled on a tank top and padded off to the kitchen, but on her way she managed to step on a bra.

"You ought to keep track of your unmentionables," Kim said over a throwback radio station and a loud sizzling noise.

Bella bent down and picked up the bra. "You can mention it," she said. "I had fun last night."

"Trust me, I know."

Despite the fact that Kim was whistling to the radio as she cooked breakfast, Bella couldn't shake the idea that she was angry with her. Bella would understand why, but she wished Kim would say something.

And Kim refused to say anything. She wouldn't have said anything, either, if Bella hadn't decided to be the bigger person. Over bacon and eggs and orange juice with a little too much pulp, Kim didn't even make eye contact with Bella, as if _she_ was the one who was embarrassed. And maybe she was, but Bella wouldn't understand even if she did ask about that.

"Are you mad at me?" Bella asked.

That was when Kim finally looked up. "I'm just confused."

"About what?"

"About you."

Bella smirked. "Well, you just happen to be talking to a near expert. What's so confusing?"

"You move in on a whim, you get messed up on literally your first night, and you—"

"Kim, I have a thing for alcohol. You should know this by now."

"I already know that," Kim clarified. "But listen. You did just a little too much last night and, honestly, I'm confused."

"But you still haven't even told me _why._ "

That was what Kim loved and hated the most about Bella: she made her honest.

"Are you gay?" Kim blurted out.

Bella didn't even bat a lash. "Well, I love dick, so..."

"But are you bi or anything?"

"I don't know. I love dick, but I love attractive people, too. I love attractive guys and I love attractive girls. I just have a lot of love to give, so I don't that shit even matters."

"Look, Bella, I know you were drunk off your ass last night and—"

"Nuh-uh, stop right there," Bella said.

"You're gonna act like you weren't drunk, right?" Kim assumed.

"No, fuck all that. I told you, I have a thing for alcohol. But I hate when people blame what they do and say on the fact that they were drunk. Like when a guy hits a girl or rapes her or says something awful to her, he always says sorry the next morning, or even the next second, because he was drunk. People will deny the idea of a girl actually being into another girl all because they were drunk. I hate that shit."

"People do lose a lot of their credibility to alcohol, though," Kim countered.

"Yeah, but not me. I don't really like taking back what I said, even if it was wrong. I know what the fuck I said last night."

"But did you mean it?"

Bella smiled genuinely. "Any old drunk bitch can see the fact that you're literally the cutest person on the planet. So yeah, I meant it. I still mean it with my whole fucking heart."

Kim gave a patronizing, sad smile. "You grew a heart all of a sudden?"

Bella shrugged. "I guess so." She didn't try to hide the sadness in her tone. "Would you be surprised if I said that I just need a friend?"

"Not really. You're the saddest girl I know."

When Bella thought about it, she realized that wasn't an accusation worth fighting over.

* * *

Bella and Kim had both gone to work that day, and at six-thirty, they met at the condo to go over inventory. They had a TV but no TV stand, dishes but no measuring cups, bottles but no bottle openers, and plenty of trash and trash bags but no trash can.

With tired eyes and exhausted feet, they strolled through the Thriftway, Kim idly pushing the shopping cart and Bella walking alongside her.

"So do you like being a personal trainer?" Bella asked absentmindedly, her eyes drifting across the aisle. They were supposed to be looking for bottle openers, but they were instead picking out more and more breakfast cereal.

"I'm not really a trainer yet," Kim clarified, "but helping other people is nice. I like that part. It's hard, though. For one thing, I have to actually eat well and work out all the time."

"What about the clients?"

"They can be annoying. They think that just because I'm being paid to help them get in shape, it's up to me to do it for them. You can't just _buy_ fitness."

"I'd be offended if I gave a damn about my health," Bella said.

"I'm persuasive, you know," Kim said. "I could get you off your ass."

Bella pursed her lips. "I bet you could." Then she tossed a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch into the cart.

They somehow got back on track to the condo necessities. They had finally found a bottle opener when Bella asked Kim, "Did you want to be a trainer in high school?"

"Nah," Kim replied. "I wanted to be a nurse. I still wanna be a nurse."

"Were you an athlete?"

"Yeah, I was a cheerleader. I danced, too, but that was mostly outside of school."

"So let me guess," Bella said. "You were a spoiled-ass brat who didn't even look at anyone outside of the associated student body."

"Close," Kim said, her eyes tracing aisle of kitchen items. "I hated the ASB kids. I was always around the football players. Typical small-town high school shit."

"I went to a huge school in Phoenix and it was the same way, except the cheerleaders were nice compared to the volleyball players."

"That's understandable. When you grow up here in Forks, high school is _everything_." Kim sneered. "I hate that."

"Did you date a football player?" Bella wondered.

"Kind of. We were an item or whatever, but he was never really there for me. And I wasn't crazy over him, anyway."

"Where's he now?" Bella wondered.

"He goes to U-Dub. The University of Washington. I'm waiting up for him."

Bella stopped in her tracks. " _What_?"

Kim paused. "What?"

"You're _waiting_ for him? Are you engaged?"

Kim shook her head. "No, not at all. But we're so on and off that I don't really mind."

"Are you a virgin or something?"

"Could you not scream that so loud that the whole fucking store hears you?" Kim asked in an annoyed whisper. "God."

"Nobody who goes to U-Dub is a virgin," Bella stated like it was a fact proven with science. "That university is massive. And he's a football player, right?" She didn't wait for Kim's response. "Kim. _Kim_. That boy is not a virgin and you sound stupid."

"It's really not that big of a deal," Kim said. Even though she didn't like Jared or even talk to him on a weekly basis, he was her sufficient endgame. He was the only person she had ever wanted that bad, besides Ashley, who had been more of a dream than a real option, seeing how she was gone for good now.

Jared was who Kim was gonna marry at the end of the day because it would be nice and easy and her parents would approve and their kids would probably be cute, too. She wasn't mad about it; she was comfortable when she didn't think about it.

"Then tell me why you're saving yourself for somebody who isn't saving themselves for you," Bella said. "I mean, he's probably fucking another girl this instant."

The worst thing about all this was that Kim couldn't even fight it.

She still tried, though.

"You don't know a thing," Kim said, "about me and Jared."

"I guess you don't, either."

"You're so—"

"Kim," Bella said. "Take this from me. Don't wait for your high school boyfriend—ever."

Then Kim swallowed her pride and decided Bella could be right on one thing.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	56. LVI

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight._

 _I'm a lot more proud of this chapter than the previous one. I think I feel better when I write longer, fuller chapters. I also feel better when I write things that are Kim-centric. I don't know. One scene of this chapter is just a little NSFW. You'll see._

 _Enjoy._

 **LVI.**

 _love me lights out_

* * *

"How do you feel about change?"

Kim watched Tanya meticulously water her cactus plants, as she did periodically. Tanya's second love—after Carmen and photography together—was taking care of her cacti, a form of gardening that didn't require too much love. It wasn't so much of the tender loving care that mattered; it was the fact that Tanya could keep an organism alive not in a desperate way, but a self-reliant one.

Tanya finally turned around, and her face was bright. The woman loved her cacti.

"Change," she said, "is inevitable."

Kim's eyes wandered over the plants, and even though she knew it would hurt, her hand ached to graze over them, just because. "How?"

"For one thing, people push it too much. It's so common, especially with photographers. They say, 'Oh, I want my work to take this direction. I want it to have that influence.' But they don't know that their work will reflect their lives without even trying to. We change—naturally."

"Do you think that we can't change by our own force?"

"I think we are capable of it," Tanya said. "I just prefer not to."

"So would you rather we make an effort to stay in the past?" Kim asked.

Tanya shook her head, the strawberry blonde curls moving in a way that reminded Kim of a shampoo commercial. "You're not obligated to be the same person you used to be, whether it's five years ago or five minutes ago."

"But isn't that being fake?"

"I think it's a mere matter of change. It's only fake if you think it is. For instance, when I was sixteen and in high school, people thought of me to be a certain way."

"Which way?" Kim asked.

"Don't laugh, but I was a cheerleader," Tanya admitted.

Kim laughed instantly.

"I said not to laugh!"

"No, I'm only laughing because I was one, too. I just couldn't see you that way, though."

"Neither could anybody else," Tanya said, her gaze somewhere in the past. "Later. But back then, I truly thought I was going to marry my high school boyfriend right after graduation and have his children and live in my hometown forever."

This rang a little too true for Kim.

"And then what?"

"And then I met Carmen."

"Did people accuse you of being fake?" Kim asked.

"Of course, they did. Not the same people, of course, but different ones. No matter how little they knew of me, they always assumed I was fake." Tanya paused, and her gaze was suddenly in the present. "But for the record, I was never faking it. Not once, and never for Carmen."

Kim didn't feel the need to say anything.

"I guess what I'm trying to say, Kim," Tanya continued, "is that what you want when you're sixteen isn't what you want when you're twenty-seven, and that's okay. It's okay. But what _isn't_ okay is to wait to go for what you want until what you think is the right moment. If you don't take that chance and embrace every single moment, time will move on without you and you'll never know what might have happened. Time will always win, but you still have to fight."

Kim didn't expect her voice to shake so much when she said, "Thank you, Tanya."

* * *

That Saturday night, the first of February, Kim struggled to apply pale pink polish to her toenails in the dim light emitting from the lamp. It was a weak little lamp, and it could go out at any moment. Painting her toenails while sitting on a bed was hard enough—without proper lighting, it was nearly impossible.

Bella sat next to Kim on the bed since there was the most amount of light there. A book was against her crisscrossed, bare legs. She had her head cradled in her left hand, trying to not let the shadow of her head get in the way of the words on the page, but the light was losing out.

"I wish it was summer again," Bella said, her eyes straining against the page.

"Why?" Kim mumbled.

"Because it doesn't get dark so easily. We wouldn't need this shitty lamp."

"We can just get a new bulb, you know."

"I think the lamp is shit, too."

"Whatever you say, Bella."

Bella continued to struggle with her novel, and then she finally gave up and closed it. She dropped the paperback to the floor. Then Kim gave up on her toenails. There was clearly more polish on her toes than the nails themselves, and she couldn't focus, anyway. Her mind was—and had been, all day—running Tanya's words over and over again.

 _Embrace every single moment. You still have to fight._

It didn't quit.

And when she looked at Bella— _really_ looked at her, with her long hair and big brown eyes and soft skin and mere _prettiness—_ she didn't want it to quit. It was too easy to not want to quit, especially with the way Bella was looking back at her like she wanted her, too.

"Being with you is so easy," Bella said.

"Is it?"

Bella nodded, and that was when Kim leaned forward and closed her eyes, and held her breath, and kissed her, kissed her, _kissed her_ like the moment would be taken away if she didn't do something.

Bella was too accepting.

They kissed, and it was gentle but rough, calm but frenzied, everything but—no, it was still everything. Kim couldn't believe how _good_ Bella tasted. She was better than anything. Better than Jared. Better than any _boy_ or drug on this planet, and she could feel herself getting addicted already. She didn't feel bad. For once in her fucking life, she didn't feel bad at all.

But then Bella pulled away, wordless and wide-eyed.

"I'm sorry," Kim said. "I've never really done that before." And she hadn't. If Ashley Newton had been an old flame, then Bella was Venus.

If Ashley Newton had been an old flame, then Bella was Venus.

"Me neither," Bella said, but her tone wasn't at all regretful.

Bella then scooted forward, clad in nothing but a tank top and her underwear, and she pressed herself to Kim, who enthusiastically went right back to kissing her.

Kim wasn't sure where to put her hands, but Bella was her guide as they ran intrinsically along her thighs. One ended up on Bella's hip, and the other moved up to her hair.

Bella didn't play shy at first. Her fingers playfully ran up Kim's t-shirt, her thumb making circles on her stomach, not yet daring to reach further north or south. Kim got impatient, though, and she eagerly pushed Bella's hand towards the button hem of her own shorts.

Kim undid the button and tugged the shorts off. Bella made sure there was no space between the two of them, and she kissed her slowly as her hands focused on getting her t-shirt off.

Kim fumbled with Bella's tank top, somehow not being able to get it over her head, and that was when they laughed together. They laughed even harder when the shitty light bulb for the shitty lamp finally burned out, and the room went completely dark.

"I hate that fucking lamp," Bella whispered.

"God, I know."

Kim guided Bella's hand to where she needed it, covered by the cotton of her panties, and she swore to God that Bella was gay or at least had some experience with another woman, because that girl knew just what she was doing. It didn't take long before Kim was moaning softly into Bella's collarbone in between heavy kisses. The sound of her own voice surprised Kim—she'd never truly let go like this before.

Bella continued to methodically move her hand between Kim's legs until she broke away, and Kim pouted in the darkness.

"Baby girl," Bella said. The way she said it made Kim want to change her own name.

"Yeah?" Kim asked, her voice a little whiny.

"You know I've never done this before."

"Me neither. What's wrong?"

Bella tugged down Kim's panties and slid down onto the bed, one hand gripping Kim's breast and the other secure on her hip.

"Just let me know if you like it," Bella whispered, and then she placed her mouth at Kim's center, where the latter girl flexed instinctively.

Bella's tongue was too skillful, too talented. It was hilarious, really, that this was her first time going down on another girl. Kim would have been laughing her ass off if she wasn't screaming in ecstasy instead. She had tried to keep calm and keep quiet, and tried to not act like such a virgin, but she fell apart in Bella's hands and mouth.

Kim felt herself melting away, but she'd keep coming back. She felt it all.

 _Embrace every single moment._

They were finally coming down for the last time when, in the pitch darkness, Kim could catch a hint of Bella's gaze. They were face to face now, torso to torso. They breathed easily, trying to wrap their heads around what had happened.

And they missed each other already.

They laced fingers, and Kim brought them up to her heart. She placed soft kisses against Bella's hand, slowly moving along. Then she wrapped her lips around her index finger and bobbed her head, moaning so gently that Bella could barely feel the vibrations.

"Damn, baby girl," Bella whispered. "I wish the shitty lamp worked so I could see that."

Kim giggled and pulled Bella in closer.

* * *

Twelve hours after being in heaven, Bella found herself smack dab in the middle of hell, adorned with the coldness of the outside western Washington air and the burning of her lungs. She couldn't breathe, couldn't talk, and couldn't even think. Even worse, she was sweating.

It was the ass crack of dawn, and Kim had taken her out for a morning run.

Kim, clearly prepared in her Nikes, athletic leggings, and hoodie jogged backward along the sidewalk. Bella, clad in seasonally inappropriate shorts, her Chucks, and a sweatshirt, pathetically tried to keep up.

"C'mon, Bella, you've got this!" Kim encouraged her. "We're almost done."

Running three laps around the condo complex was what Kim did every Sunday morning before breakfast. It had never been that difficult. Then again, Kim was in shape and Bella was nowhere near it. In fact, Bella had tripped and fallen to her hands and knees twice now. It was a sorry sight.

Bella stopped suddenly and doubled over with her hands on her hips. Her high ponytail fell in front of her face. She was panting hard.

Kim paused. "Are you okay?" she asked.

Bella focused on catching her breath. If she had eaten anything for breakfast, then she would have puked it up already, but there was nothing to come out.

"I," she began between heavy breaths. "Am not. An athlete."

Kim crossed her arms. "It's not about being an _athlete_. It's about being in shape."

"Well, I'm not in shape, either," Bella breathed. Her face looked like she was in actual pain. "You don't get it, Kim. I'm skinny fat. I have no muscle, no stamina. The only thing keeping me alive is my fat, and it's all in my ass."

Kim threw her head back and laughed, able to see her hot breath in the cold air. "Come _on_."

Bella looked genuinely offended. "It's true!"

"We can fix all that," Kim said, her disposition positive. Then she went to Bella's side and wrapped her arm around her waist. "Let's get inside."

"For breakfast, right?" Bella asked enthusiastically.

"Not yet. Weights."

Bella groaned so loud that the whole neighborhood could hear her.

The measly gym at the condo complex was underdeveloped, but it was enough. It had a couple treadmills, an elliptical or two, and plenty of weights. It also featured a giant TV that always competed in volume with the radio. Nobody knew how to turn the TV down, and the remote was nowhere to be found.

Bella took one look at the exercise equipment and her face said it all. Kim laughed.

"This isn't funny," Bella said. "I could really use some breakfast."

"Drink some water, you'll be alright."

Kim made her way to the dumbbells and Bella followed. Kim began her workout, and Bella mostly supervised. The most that she learned was what the proper form of a squat looked like, and even then she couldn't really accomplish it.

"I'll make breakfast if you can do, like, one squat," Kim said.

"That's so patronizing if you ask me," Bella replied.

"Okay, but I wasn't asking. C'mon, Bella. You've seen me do a hundred of them."

Bella held the dumbbell between her hands and began to squat, but she paused before she had even really gotten down and stood back up.

"What?" Kim asked bluntly.

"Kim, I am _so_ sore from last night. That was my annual workout."

The other girl smiled. "I know. I'm sore, too, but maybe it won't be an annual thing. You could get used to it."

"I _better_ get used to it," Bella said.

"Good. Now do a squat."

It took two more tries to finally get one up to Kim's standards, but Bella actually performed a proper squat. She winced when she got back up.

"See, that wasn't so bad," Kim said.

"Anything for breakfast," Bella replied. She walked to the rest to the rest of the weights to return the one in her hands, and when she came back, Kim was frozen in front of the TV. The sound of the local news was blaring, but only under the radio.

 _Forks boy driven to suicide by bullies._

A familiar local news reporter stood in front of Forks High School, speaking into a microphone. Kim didn't know how to turn down the radio, so she couldn't hear exactly what the reporter was saying, but what she got was that a teenage boy who attended the town's high school had killed himself because he had been bullied. And he had been bullied because he was openly gay. It was like so many other sad stories in the news, but Kim started to literally ache. This story hit wildly close to home.

Kim found herself angry at too many things at once. For one thing, kids on the reservation killed themselves all the time, but it was never reported on the local news. Also, for some reason, she had never expected a kid in Forks to kill themselves under circumstances like that. It was the perfect town for something like that to happen in; it was small and close-knit and probably mostly conservative. But this was surprising, somehow. And last, blatant homophobia hadn't hit her in the face like this since Mike Newton had… well, hit her in the face. She could taste her own blood now. She could feel the warm spring breeze of that day, how inappropriately nice the weather had been that afternoon.

Bella nudged her. "Kim," she said. "Snap out of it. We've gotta go."

Kim blinked, and she realized Bella was right. They had to go.

* * *

The rest of that Sunday had been easy, so when Kim woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, she didn't understand where she had gone wrong.

She'd had yet another nightmare about the trip to Venice. This time, she had been beaten to death in jail and it felt so real that she had drawn real blood on the inside of her cheek.

Kim jolted, and Bella, with her arms wrapped around her, lightly stroked her arm. "What's wrong?" she murmured.

"Nothing," Kim whispered. "Just some stupid dream about Venice."

"That part is over," Bella reminded her. "It's _been_ over."

It had only been six months. It hadn't been that long. Not to Kim. But she let Bella stroke her hair and act stronger than her for the time being. She was really good at that kind of thing.

* * *

Kim was starting to return to Earth on Monday, and by the end of the day, she had crash landed. As she and Bella ate dinner at their little table, her cell phone rang. It was Rob Conweller, her father.

"Hey, Dad," Kim said somewhat off-kilter. She hadn't received a call from her father since he'd gotten her the condo, and that was weeks ago. He usually just gave her things and left her alone with them. "Is everything okay? How's Mom?"

"Everything's great, princess, and Kristen's just fine. How's the condo?"

"It's, uh—it's great. I'm treating it right. Well, we're missing some pieces, but we're getting it together. Did I tell you I have a roommate?" _Roommate_ was a much safer title than _girlfriend._

She glanced at Bella, who had momentarily stopped eating to hear Kim's side of the phone conversation. _Were_ they girlfriends? Kim figured that since they clearly had an emotional connection and had had sex more than once—at least five times now if she was being completely honest—they had to be _something._

"You didn't," Rob replied. "How about me and your mom meet her?"

"Oh, you wanna _meet_ her?" Kim asked, taken by surprise. "When?"

"Soon, probably. How about dinner at your place?"

"Dad, I wish I could agree to that, but the place really isn't… ready. In between work and school and stuff, we've been slowly getting all the missing pieces together. Me and Bella have been kind of busy."

Bella snorted, and Kim silently shushed her.

"Her name's Bella?" Rob asked.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that, but, yeah, that's her name. Bella Swan. I know her through Leah and the rest of them. But, anyways, Mom would freak out if we had you guys over. The condo isn't exactly you guys' place."

Rob laughed as if it was really that funny. He and Kristen were rich, whitewashed, and kind of old. Of course their kid wasn't going to have a house as nice as theirs. "Then we'll have dinner at our house," he offered. "We miss you, princess."

"I miss you, too. Can you do tomorrow night?"

"I think so. I'll let you know if we can't, but plan on showing up at seven."

"Alright, Dad. We'll see you tomorrow."

She was about to hang up, but Rob wasn't done yet. "Kim?" he asked.

"Love you."

"Love you, too, Dad."

She finally hung up, and she was surprised he had let her leave the nest in the first place.

Bella had her chin cupped in her left hand, and she smiled all goofy at Kim. " _Wow_ ," she said.

"What?" Kim asked, setting her phone down on the table.

"Daddy's girl, much?"

Kim rolled her eyes. "Not by choice."

"I wish _my_ dad loved me that much."

"That's why you have your mom," Kim said. "So, anyway, you're gonna have to help me pick out something cute to wear tomorrow night since I haven't put on a dress in about two years."

"You're telling me," Bella replied. "I don't know even know what dressing up is, and I'm the one with an impression to make."

Kim smirked. "Why's that?"

"I've gotta make sure I'm just right for daddy's little girl."

"I think my dad will like you just fine," Kim assured Bella. "It's my mom that's hard to impress. Nothing pleases her and she judges literally everything."

"So I need to pick up a formal flannel, right?" Bella wondered. "Or a snap back that says, 'Yes, I just ate your daughter out but I swear to God I'm a decent person.'"

"Bella, _please_ ," Kim said. "You don't _have_ to dress like a butch lesbian."

"Should I attempt to look gay at all? Or are we just gonna be roommates in twenty-four hours?"

"I don't know," Kim admitted. "I kind of want to come out to them. It would make me feel a lot less guilty for lying about why they haven't heard about Jared in a while. We've also had some practice with Tanya and Carmen."

"Tanya and Carmen aren't your parents, though," Bella pointed out.

"True, but they're the gay parents I wish I had. I trust them."

"Well, I think you'll be fine if you come out to your real parents. Your mom might get over it." She paused. "Are you an only child?"

Kim nodded. "Yeah, why?"

"Never mind, then. Your mom might not ever get over it."

The worst part of all this was that Bella was right.

* * *

Twenty-four hours later, Kim and Bella sat at the former girl's old dining room table. The table was too long, too separating, for a group of four. It was the most extravagant part of the house, and it suddenly made Kim feel very pretentious. It also made Kim feel more fake than ever.

The feeling of being fake stayed with her and her baby pink cardigan, an article of clothing that she hadn't worn since her junior year of high school. Matching with her baby pink skirt and white blouse, Kim looked like a feminine dream. She was trying too hard. Next to her at the table—but still _so_ far away—sat Bella, clad in a conservative forest green dress. Based on her choice of dress alone, Kristen already found her to be plain.

Kristen Conweller was a half-white/half-Quileute forty-something who spent a majority of her life being bitter. Her husband, Rob, a full Tulalip from Marysville, had worked hard for what they had, building on what his father had, and what his grandfather had, and so on. The wealth—mostly in the casino business—had merely fallen into Kristen's lap she she met him, but she still wasn't happy living in Forks, even with everything they had now. Kim would never understand it. But to be fair, she didn't understand why they lived in Forks, anyway. Marysville, all the way on the other side of Puget Sound, had way more opportunities than Forks in every field... except logging, maybe.

So Kristen silently judged Bella, even as Bella nearly bent over backwards to sound as respectable and respectful as possible. There was no changing that. Rob, on the other hand, was as inviting as he could be. At this point, Kim hadn't even come out yet. All she had done was introduce Bella as her good friend and roommate.

"Does the condo have enough room for the both of you?" he asked. "I knew we should have gotten one with two bedrooms."

"It's perfect," Bella said gratefully. "And we're not afraid of sharing." She smiled, and it was a proven fact that Bella could charm the pants off at least one of everyone's parents.

"That's good, that's good," Rob said. "I'm so glad Kim here's got somebody to help pay the bills. Now, did you go to two go to school together?"

"No, I went to high school in Phoenix," Bella said. "We go to college together now, though."

"Phoenix," Kristen repeated, finally speaking up after saying hello to Bella half an hour ago. "That sounds exciting."

"It was as normal as any other high school," Bella explained. "Bigger than Forks High probably."

"Did you all hear about that kid committing suicide who went to that school?" Rob asked everyone.

"Yeah, that was really sad," Kim replied. "He was only sixteen."

"It was because he was gay, right?" Rob said.

"He was bullied for being gay," Bella clarified. "I guess the bullying was what sent him over."

"It's just not natural," Kristen piped up. "He could have easily _not_ been gay. He had it coming, and honestly? I don't feel bad for him. If anything, I feel worse for his parents. Their son was gay and that must be the hardest thing for them to deal with."

Kim opened her mouth, prepared to drag her mother to the pits of hell, but Bella flashed her a look. Kim stopped herself. She gave Bella a look that said, _Abort mission. Abort mission. Do not come out. You will be murdered on sight._

She didn't know why she'd even gotten her hopes up.

* * *

The rest of dinner wasn't the same after that, and it ended with the same awkwardness that every past dinner had ended with, all throughout Kim's childhood and adolescence. So maybe it was a good thing that this dinner had gone sour—they all turned that way eventually.

Kim had wanted this to be _different_ , though. She had planned on it being different, and it had all slipped through her fingers like water.

As she drove back to her condo with Bella in Shady Pointe, she tried not to be upset, tried not do lose it, but she fell apart like the cry baby she was. Kim was an ugly crier. She did the face crumpling, the hard breathing, the whimpering. But she didn't fucking care.

Bella didn't care, either. She just let the tears fall in the car, and once they were home, she let Kim fall into her arms. It was all that Bella was good for, anyway.

* * *

It was Wednesday, one of Kim's days off at the gym, and she had come home from school rather early—and alone. She knocked on Tanya and Carmen's door, and the latter woman opened it, a warm smile spread across her face.

Carmen had been admiring the cacti. She loved her cacti, too. She didn't do anything but look at them. Make sure they were well. She told Kim that she would have taken pictures of the cacti, but she wouldn't want to bore her.

They sat in silence until Kim couldn't keep quiet anymore.

"How do you feel about change?"

Carmen turned, her face blank and honest.

"Change," she said, "is inevitable."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thank you so, so much for reading._

 _Take care and stay tuned,_

 _HS_


	57. LVII

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight.  
_

 _So this is chapter 57 of Static. It's a lot shorter compared to the previous one._

 _Enjoy._

 **LVII.**

 _let's not pretend it's love_

* * *

February carried on in a constant state of bliss with just the right amount of reality mixed in. Bella and Kim fell into a state of mundane domesticity rather quickly, and Bella didn't really mind—for a while.

They were sitting on their all-too-familiar couch studying in their all-to-familiar textbooks one evening after dinner, and Bella was stirring on the inside. It was like a little switch had gone off in her head: _you're comfortable._ She wasn't against living a drama-free life. She didn't live to be petty or start issues (besides the fact that she was a world-class bridge burner), but she didn't live to stay still, either. Being static was like second nature now, and she didn't really like it, even though she really liked Kim. Kim would never understand.

But Paul would.

Bella suddenly ached for her boy, her good friend, her companion. She hadn't seen or heard from Paul Lahote since she had moved in with Kim, and while she and Kim were good friends or whatever they were, she and Paul were even better friends.

She got up from the couch and closed her textbook.

Kim peered up from her homework. " _You're_ keyed up."

Bella nodded. "Yeah," she said, looking for her shoes. "I just realized how much I need to see my old friend."

"We only know eight people," Kim replied. "Who is it?"

"I need to see Paul." And Bella knew it sounded weird. She knew it made her sound flaky. But telling the truth in her strange way would be better than lying, especially to Kim. Kim might understand.

" _Paul_?" Kim asked, clearly not understanding. "I didn't know Leah allowed you to like him."

"I don't need Leah's approval to be friends with someone," Bella said. "Leah doesn't have her name branded onto his dick."

Kim knew Bella didn't have the best word choice, but Bella _always_ knew what she said. "What are you even saying?" she asked.

"Paul has really helped me through a lot," Bella explained, "and we're actually good friends. I trust him."

"But you don't trust me?" Kim asked, trying really hard not to sound accusatory. It came off whiny instead.

"No, no, no," Bella said. "I trust you—God, how could I not? But I miss him. He helped me out of a bad place"—okay, that was a stretch—"and I haven't talked to him in forever."

Kim didn't want to fight. She didn't want to have to mend anything that she didn't have to break. She just didn't say anything—instead, she looked at Bella with those big Bambi eyes and tried to get her to stay. She was attached. It wasn't that hard to see.

"Baby _girl_ ," Bella crooned. "Who says a guy and a girl can't be _just_ friends? That's as bad as assuming that you and I are _just_ friends, and we both know that's not true."

Kim often confused her brain with her heart. She often took things really hard. She often didn't want to trust anybody but she often couldn't tell when somebody was going to betray her since it had only happened repeatedly.

And Bella knew all of those things.

Bella sat down on the couch again and came in really close. She kissed Kim tenderly on the cheek. "Baby girl," she whispered. "Do you not trust me?"

"That's the problem," Kim said, not moving away. "I trust you too much." _Just not when you're bored._

Bella's voice was hard. "Then prove it."

And then she left without even a wave goodbye.

* * *

Kim stayed up late that night waiting up for Bella. She didn't mind, as per usual, but Bella did.

It was ten after midnight when Bella finally stumbled into the condo. All the lights were off, but Kim sat in the dark of their room with the door open just a crack. She couldn't see anything, but she heard enough.

Bella's drunken laughter echoed through the entryway as she simultaneously tried really, really hard to be quiet. "You're stupid," Kim heard her whisper. "Go home."

Kim couldn't hear Paul, but she knew he was there. They were good friends, after all, he and Bella. Kim felt wrong in this moment—even though she didn't have any significantly deep connections with Paul, she still considered him to be Leah's. And Bella was hers. Or she wanted her to be. Maybe it was because Bella was her actual first love. This hit her hard in the darkness, underneath Bella's self-assured laugh and hushed whispers.

Another that hit Kim was that she wasn't Bella's first love. She was nowhere near it.

"Go home," Bella said again. "You're fucked up. Go home to your girlfriend."

"Go home to _your_ girlfriend," Paul said, just as drunk as Bella.

"I am," Bella replied. "I _am_."

Then Kim didn't feel so bad.

"You're fuckin' wild, _chica_ ," he said.

"Why?"

He was silent for a moment. "Goodnight," he finally said.

"Goodnight."

Kim shut her eyes tight, braced to hear anything else, but all she heard was the front door close and the deadbolt turn. And suddenly, she felt Bella's weight added to the bed. Bella's boots fell to the floor with a low thud.

Bella began to stroke Kim's hair. "I miss you," she whispered. "Present tense."

"I'm right here." Already, Kim's voice had that throaty sound to it. It was heavy and it meant she was on the verge of sobbing.

"Oh, don't cry. Don't cry."

"Bella, tell me," Kim said, the tears already falling. "Are you cheating on me?"

Bella's thumb ran under Kim's eyes, wiping the tears away. "Baby girl, don't cry."

"Are you?"

"Paul's my friend," Bella said. "He's my good friend and you can't forget about those. That would be like you giving up on Leah. Shit like that just doesn't work. You'd understand."

Then she kissed Kim, but Kim didn't forget. She tried to let the tears dry on their own, tried to assume that Bella and Paul were just friends, but somewhere deep down, she had a strong feeling that Bella was like what everyone said about her.

Bella Swan was no good.

* * *

Bella didn't have dinner with Kim for the next two days. While in the moment it felt like the biggest betrayal, it really wasn't a big deal. At least, not to Bella. She would go to school and go to work and go to Paul. Kim would wait up for her as if it wasn't hurting her, and Bella would kiss it better and tell her not to worry.

On day three of DSB (Dinner Sans Bella), Kim had prepared dinner for one. She knew better tonight. Bella might come in to change clothes and run out of the place again, but there was no use in cooking for her. She might say she had some catching up to do with Paul—but how much could two people possibly catch up on when they had only been without each other for weeks?

And Kim asked Bella this right as the latter woman did just what was expected. She burst into the condo after work, briefly greeted Kim, and ran to their bedroom to change clothes.

Kim caught her, clad in nothing but her bra and panties, rummaging through a pile of clothes like her life depended on it.

She leaned against the door, her head tilted. "What are you doing?"

Bella turned around. "Oh, hey. Come to get a sneak peek?"

"I came to see what you were doing."

"I'm going out," Bella replied. "Like I have been for the last couple of nights. What's up?"

"Can I come? Paul's my friend, too." Kim didn't know where she was getting at; she had never thought she would find the courage to even attempt to confront Bella.

"You'd hate it," Bella said. "Like, all we do is sit around and talk."

"I like talking. You should bring him over here."

Bella just rolled her eyes and searched for some new jeans, presumably ones that didn't smell like little kids. She pulled them up over her legs but didn't button them up. She then went through another pile of her clothes to look for a top.

"Are you okay?" Bella asked. "You usually don't—"

"Don't what?"

"Ask so many questions. You're all riled up, baby girl."

"Am I not a good enough friend for you, Bella?" Kim demanded. "I know we jumped into… all of this really fast, but… but I want you to want to talk to me. You know? And I understand that you need friends—I mean, we all do—but you never see me sneaking out and coming back way early in the morning from talking with Leah."

Bella finally found a top, but she just held it in her hands. She walked up to Kim, stared at her in the eyes.

"Are you jealous of Paul?" she asked quietly.

Kim felt the tears burning in her eyes. _Damn it._

Bella widened her eyes. "You're fucking _jealous_ of Paul."

"With the way you act with him, why wouldn't I be?"

" _Fuck_ , Kim!" Bella exclaimed. "Can't I have a fucking friend to tell my secrets to and be able to just _talk to_ without you worrying that I'm having sex with them? If you're gonna believe all the shit that everyone says about me, you can go and—"

"The thing is, Bella," Kim said, "I've been trying _so_ fucking hard to not believe all the shit that everyone says about you. I haven't talked to my friends in _weeks_ because I've been so caught up in you and making us work. Do you not want us to work?"

That was when Bella's expression softened. She looked genuinely upset. She was still pretty when she was about to cry, though, and that was where Kim's heart was breaking.

"God, Kim," Bella said. "You're so fucking _nice._ You're nice to everyone. You're even nice to me when I don't deserve it."

"Don't call me that," Kim murmured.

"I'm sorry, but you are. Baby girl, you're the nicest, sweetest, most kindhearted person I know and… and you deserve someone who won't hurt you, someone who loves you unconditionally and you wouldn't mind taking home to your parents. You deserve to be loved by someone who will love you with their whole heart. I don't like being fake, though. I don't like pretending that what we have is love. You're my girl, and riding with you was the best, but I can't do this. We can't do this."

Kim felt her whole heart rise up to her throat. She couldn't breathe. She didn't even know what oxygen _was._ What she did know, though, was that something was breaking inside of her. Something was being twisted and tortured and there was nothing she could do.

And then Bella leaned in close and kissed her on the cheek. "Love you long time, baby girl," she whispered in her ear.

"Bella," Kim said.

"Hmm?" Their faces were still attached.

"Did you cheat on me?"

Bella pulled away and put her top on. It was a gray t-shirt with a hole near the bottom that looked like a cigarette burn.

"Don't worry about it," she said.

And then she was gone.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks for reading. The next chapter features the dawn of lifelong friendship and something kind of funny._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	58. LVIII

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight or Death Proof or anything else that sounds familiar in this story._

 _This is chapter 58 of Static. Writing it has made me feel a lot better, honestly. There's kind of a lot going on, but try to stick with it. It has some stuff to tug at the heart maybe, a nod to the 2008-2012 madness that was Twilight culture (RIP), a scene that is NSFW, some drama, and a little bit more. Writing it has just made me feel alright, for many reasons. Hopefully, you'll feel a little bit of what I felt._

 _Also, thank you thank you thank you thank you THANK YOU for the follows, favorites, and reviews that have been coming in. They all make my heart flutter. Truly._

 _Enjoy._

 **LVIII.**

 _didn't they tell you that i was a savage?_

* * *

In the winter, especially the worst of it in February, Sunshine Childcare was anything but sunny. Most of the children didn't have weather-appropriate clothes, anyway, but by this point, every child had a cold. They all had to stay inside, so everyone remained sick, too. And these kids would never get better at home. Bella found them to be a lost, sad cause, but she sometimes found herself feeling as helpless as they were.

There was this one little girl, Bella Murphy, who found herself attached to Bella Swan. Sometimes they referred to each other as twins, even though the little girl was only six. The other kids just called her Bell. Little Bell had long blonde hair and big gray eyes and a ratty purple coat that had sleeves so short that her skinny wrists were always exposed. She wore that coat and bright blue leggings with dirt at the knees every single day. Bell was a quiet girl who flinched at loud noises and sudden movements, and she frequently apologized for things that weren't her fault.

Bell, of all the children, made Bella feel the most hopeless.

About a week after Bella and Kim had broken up, Bella had found herself much more immersed in her job. She had never really left it, but she seemed to pay more attention. Bell began to talk to her, and it was the only time she talked to anyone. The little girl had always been shut as a seashell, but in the attention of Bella, she opened up, just a little more.

It was a cold day outside, but the classroom, which had too many kids for the number of teachers available, was burning up. The kids, sniffles and all, ran around the room, but Bell remained in the reading corner, a carpeted area stocked with chapter books and picture books alike.

Bella approached her and squatted down to her level. Bella was the only person the six-year-old didn't back away from on sight, but she was still on alert.

"Hey, twinsie," Bella said gently. "Why aren't you playing with the other kids?"

Bell's eyes were down in a picture book. "I like reading," she replied.

"Once you're done reading, would you want to play with the other kids?"

She was missing her two front teeth, so she spoke with a lisp. "I just like reading, that's all."

"I'll tell you what," Bella said. "If you go out and play with the others, I'll read with you. We'll read three books together. How's that sound?"

Little Bell looked up and began to smile her rare grin. "Okay," she said.

Bella was then swamped by three kids all tugging at her legs and crying, "Miss Bella, Miss Bella." She directed her attention towards them and fulfilled their requests, which really meant tying their shoes. The next time she looked up, Little Bell was gone.

Bella and the two other teachers in the classroom, Lauren and Angela, ran around tending to the children. Someone had hit someone else. Someone needed a tissue. Someone lost a communal toy. And so on, and so on. It was as hectic as any ordinary day until Bella suddenly heard a chorus of, " _Eww._ " That always meant something bad.

A majority of the kids were crowded around someone or something near the front of the room, and when Bella got over there, she saw that Little Bell was in the middle. She had wet herself, and she wasn't even crying. Her face was blank.

The other kids taunted and pointed at and laughed at her, but she didn't express any emotion and it was the scariest thing Bella had seen. Bella took her away from the group as Lauren and Angela tried to calm the other kids down.

Bella brought her to the back room, and she once again squatted to the little girl's level. "Let's get you cleaned up."

"I'm sorry," Little Bell said. "I'm so sorry, Miss Bella, I'm so, so sorry."

"It's okay, sweetie. Accidents happen. Are you okay?"

"I don't know."

"You're gonna be okay," Bella promised. "We can call your mom in a little bit, but for now, we need to get you into some dry pants."

"No," the little girl uttered. "No. No." She just kept shaking her head and saying, "No."

"No to calling your mom or no to getting you new pants?" Bella asked.

"Both," the little girl said.

That day turned out to be Little Bell's last day at Sunshine. Her mother was called, and when she finally showed up, clearly cracked out, she screamed at Bella and then proceeded to scream at Bella's boss. She snatched Little Bell away by her skinny wrist and the girl couldn't even wave goodbye.

* * *

Bella sat in her truck and immediately called Paul after work. She tried not to get emotionally attached to any of the kids at work, seeing as that probably wasn't allowed and they weren't even _her_ kids, but she was feeling very emotional and she didn't want to go home. She didn't want to sleep or eat knowing that the kids she cared for on a daily basis could barely sleep and could barely eat.

"Hello?" he finally answered, just before she was about to give up.

"Hey, Paul, it's Bella. I need your time real quick."

"You know where to go."

* * *

Their special place wasn't even that special. It was literally just the coffee shop outside town. They'd both been there with different people in the past, but somehow, it was theirs. Embry Call still worked there. It was the same damn coffee shop that Paul had taken Leah after Prom. Then Leah and Bella had busted it up in order to pay for the Venice trip. That little coffee shop was everything, but it was brand new to Bella and Paul.

"Order what you want," he told her. "I got time."

"Thanks," she said.

"So how have you been?" he asked. "You look like you had a rough-ass day."

"I did," she assured him.

"More daycare shit?"

She nodded. "Plenty. This one girl named Bella pissed herself today and is now never coming back as if that's our fault. Her mom's some crackhead and it's so fucking clear that she neglects her daughter. That bitch tried to yell at _me_ for apparently getting in their business when I'm literally a teacher there. Like, that _is_ my business. The fact that _her_ kid has been so neglected and abused that she says sorry for everything and is scared of everyone _becomes_ my business when I see it at my job. God, Paul, and if you saw the girl, you could totally tell she's been sexually abused, too. She shows all the signs. Her mom's killing her. She's fucking killing her, and… and..." Bella didn't even know she was crying until the frustrated tears began to run down her face.

"Hey, it's alright," Paul said. "You can't save every little kid."

"That's the _problem_ ," she cried. "I _can't_ save every little kid when so many of them need to be saved. God, I hate that daycare. It's so hopeless. I just wanna help them grow up to be good people, but I can't have even a little impact when their parents are killing them, breaking down everything I've tried to build up. I feel so damn useless."

Paul grabbed her hand across the table. "Look, it's okay," he told her. "You're doing your job. Shit, you're doing _more_ than your job. So many assholes could easily just clock in and sit on their ass for their whole shift, get the paycheck, and move the fuck on. But you're trying. That's what matters. You can't adopt every kid and care for them, but I wish every parent in the world was a lot more like you. The world would be a hell of a happier place."

She wiped tears from her face with her other hands. She sniffled. "If I ever have a daughter, I don't want her to be afraid of the people who love her. The world will be hard enough on her as it is, but I want her to feel safe at home, where she's allowed it. That's all I want."

"You're doing good, Bella," he assured her. "You've got good ideas, and you're doing good. I think you'd be a great mom."

She took a deep breath and then exhaled. She felt a little better. "Thanks."

"Wait, the little girl's _name_ is Bella?"

"Yeah. We have, like, three Bellas and four Jacobs. They were all born in 2008 and 2009—you know how that goes. Anyway, how have you been since the last time I saw you?"

"Well, I broke up with my side piece. She wasn't that mad, though. She could tell I was distracted."

"I know the feeling," Bella replied. "Except mine was kind of jealous. She knew I was distracted, too."

"You still live with her?"

"Yeah. Whether or not I'm having sex with her has nothing to do with the fact that I pay my bills on time. I mean, shit, I'm just a roommate. I'm a _good_ roommate."

"Was it messy?" he wondered. "The breakup?"

She nodded. "She was really jealous of us."

"Shit, we're just friends."

"I know, but she didn't believe that. But, I mean, I was her first. Like, ever."

" _Oh_ ," he said. "I gotcha."

"Also, I guess I'm sort of known as a bridge burner."

"I don't listen to what people say about you," he said.

"People always say that _you're_ full of shit," she replied, "so I don't know whether or not to believe you."

"Believe me, Bella." Her name rolled off his tongue like water. "People just like to talk shit. I'm not that bad of a guy."

"I don't even know you that well," she admitted.

"But?"

She smiled. "But I think I'd like to."

He gave her that mischievous grin, and that was it. "Let's get outta here, then, baby girl."

* * *

When they pulled up to the condo complex, Bella noticed the empty parking spot next to where she usually kept her truck. It was nearly seven o'clock, pitch black outside, and Kim wasn't home yet.

She parked, and then rolled down her window. "You can park in Kim's spot," she told Paul.

"You sure she won't be mad?"

"If she's not home now, she won't be for a while. She probably went to get dinner with Leah or something."

Paul parked his car, the busted little blue one, and got out. Bella took his hand and led him up to the fourth floor. She unlocked the front door but didn't open it. Instead, she turned around.

"We're just friends, okay?" she asked, even though she knew neither of them were seeing anyone at the moment. Still, she wanted to avoid as much pain as possible.

"'Course."

Then she opened the door. She pulled him in and was taken aback when he kissed her hard on the mouth like he missed her or something. He almost knocked her out with that kiss.

They stumbled back to her bedroom, and clumsily landed on Kim's bed. Paul tried to play it cool.

Bella broke away. "Wrong bed," she said, and she pulled him across the room to her own bed.

He set her on her back and began to kiss at her throat. He kissed her hard, with passion. He knew just where to put his hands and mouth, and Bella found it kind of unfair that he was so good at this. He couldn't fake his skill here. She had thought that _she_ was good at sex, but he was something else.

Paul Lahote was a challenge in the best way possible.

He didn't hesitate to get them both naked, and he swiftly pulled out a condom from his wallet. He put it on and Bella just kept her mouth busy against his strong, sturdy jawline and her hands along his torso.

"You ready?" he whispered.

"Yeah," she murmured.

"Promise me one thing?"

"Sure."

"Let me know if you like it." Then he entered her, and she immediately moaned into his skin. He shuddered but tried to play it off cool, as if Bella wasn't that alright herself.

For such a hothead, he really liked to take his time. And even though he and Bella were just friends, he acted like he was making love to her. For someone who was commonly referred to by other parties as an asshole, he was really a sweetheart, too. He went steady and slow at first, getting her used to him. She had never been with anyone like him. He was a combination of the other men she had been with, but also something else entirely.

They had been going slow for a while now, probably to last as long as possible, but Bella was slowly reaching the edge. She wasn't into that slow shit; she appreciated Paul's effort and skill but her goal was to finish, preferably before her roommate got home.

He was consistent, though. Even better, they were compatible with each other. He flexed and she responded accordingly. He grunted softly, and it only turned her on more. It was a challenge—a game, really—and they both played fair, all in the name of platonic friendship.

He broke away for a moment, and before she could protest, he turned her around so that she was on her hands and knees on the mattress.

"Bella?" he whispered in her ear. He had one hand in her hair and the other between her legs.

She arched her back, eagerly pushing up against him. "Yeah?"

"You're my best fucking friend."

* * *

The rest of the week passed by in a strange blur. Bella kept getting to know Paul in the presumed safety of the condo, and Kim stayed out of the way. She didn't even know they were having sex in her bedroom.

Kim kept herself busy by spending most of her nights that week with Leah and Emily, who still didn't know what had happened between her and Bella. As far as they knew, Bella was always working and Kim just missed them. Those parts were true, but Kim didn't want Leah to know that Bella and Paul were talking at all—the extent of their relationship, as far as Leah knew, was that they had drunkenly hooked up at the New Year's Eve party, almost died in a car crash a little while later, and decided to carry on with their lives.

Kim didn't like lying. It just complicated everything. She just didn't want to come out yet to the people she thought of as her best friends, either.

Jacob had invited everyone to his house Friday evening for a movie night, but it had been Embry's idea. It was really an excuse for them to get back in the loop since their lives were dull at the moment, but things were always interesting when the ten of them got together. It was true that each individual only really knew nine other people, but maybe that was what they needed.

By Friday morning, Kim knew that Bella was going to go to Jacob's house that night. She could only imagine that it was because Paul would be there, but Kim still wanted to take a chance and believe that they were just friends. Good friends. Despite their breakup, Bella was easy to live with. She paid bills and cleaned up after herself, and honestly, Kim shouldn't have expected much more out of her.

She really shouldn't have.

When Kim was leaving for school Friday morning, Tanya caught her in just the right moment. She was in her pajamas still, but she looked stressed.

"Hey, Kim," she said. "Do you have a minute?"

Kim checked her watch. She had exactly one minute. "Yeah, sure."

"I know this is kind of embarrassing, but I never get to see Bella so I can't really address her about it without turning it into a confrontation."

Kim suddenly became wary. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything is fine, but this might come off as shocking if you two are still together."

"We're not together anymore," Kim clarified. "What is it?"

"I can frequently hear Bella and some guy having sex—it's annoying. I don't care who she's with or what she does in the privacy of her own place, but I do care once it starts interrupting _my_ privacy in _my_ own place."

Suddenly, it didn't matter that Bella had totally invalidated Kim's feelings for her. It didn't matter that to Bella, what she and Kim had shared hadn't been all that special. At least she had been honest then because Kim shouldn't have expected a straight girl to really _get_ how she was feeling, anyway.

It was the _lying_ that got to Kim. It was the fact that Bella had lied to her face about cheating. It was the fact that Bella had lied to her face about being just friends with Paul.

Kim felt so fucking stupid.

She had believed her the entire time.

"I'm sorry," Tanya said. "I wouldn't have said anything, mostly because I thought you were aware, but I've heard them four times now."

Kim just kept shaking her head. "No. Don't be sorry. I'm actually glad you told me. It's not like we're together anymore, so it's fine. I'll talk to her."

Tanya gave a sad smile. "Thank you, Kim. Let me know if you need anything, okay?"

"Okay. Thanks."

* * *

That Friday night was freezing. It had started to snow by the time everyone had arrived at Jacob's house, armed with sleeping bags, junk food, and plenty of beer. The snow was predicted to be really bad tonight, so maybe it was fate that they would all be stuck together. In some ways, it was planned; in others, it wasn't.

"Since this is all just some big slumber party," Paul said to Jacob as he sat on a sleeping bag with Bella, a beer in both of their hands, "are we gonna make s'mores? Play board games?"

"Quit it with that cheesy shit," Jacob said. "And besides—you play enough games."

"Ha, ha."

Emily and Sam shared a quilt as they lounged on the couch. She rested her head on his shoulder comfortably, and from the kitchen, Embry tried not to pay attention to them. He knew why Emily had gone to her same old safe bet. It was the same. It was safe. They had history, no matter how bad it was, and he couldn't crack that no matter how hard he tried to wow her with his movie taste and technology skills. Embry wasn't pushy, though; he didn't mind waiting forever. He just preferred not to.

"So what's first, Jake?" Emily asked.

"I forgot," Jake said, "but Embry knows. He came up with the movies. I just said I'd buy pizza."

Leah came to the living room with a paper plate of pizza. Kim followed. "Thanks, Jake," Leah said. "For the pizza."

He shrugged. "Everyone likes pizza. Hey, Kim."

Kim, still a bit on edge, nodded in his direction. "Hi."

"What the fuck is _Death Proof_?" Quil practically yelled from the kitchen.

"Chill, man," Seth said. "It's good."

Quil held the DVD in his hands, flipping from the front cover to the back over and over again. "It's a chick flick?"

"It stars mainly girls," Embry clarified, "but it's _not_ a chick flick."

"But are there titties?"

"The fuck you mean, _are there titties_? We're watching a movie, not a porno."

"There better be some titties, Embry."

"Man, shut up."

"Chill out," Emily called. "It really is a good movie."

" _Thanks_ , Emily," Quil said sarcastically.

The rest of the group made their way to the living room. Embry put in the _Death Proof_ DVD. He and Jacob joined Sam and Emily on the couch in the middle of the room. Kim and Leah went to the loveseat to the right of the couch. Seth and Quil sat on the floor across the room from Bella and Paul, in front of Kim and Leah.

Embry saw Emily's face light up at the title screen for the movie. _Happy birthday, Em_ , he thought.

When the ten of them got together, nothing was quiet. Jokes were thrown at the television screen (in special thanks to Quil and Paul), and side conversations bloomed (in special thanks to alcohol).

"How've you been, Bambi?" Leah asked Kim. "How's the new place?"

"I've been kind of stressed, honestly," Kim replied, and in her peripherals, she could catch Bella's stare.

"I heard Bella's rooming with you. How's that going?" Leah knew just where she was getting at and she didn't even _know_ the story.

"Well, that's not gonna last long," Kim said loud enough that Bella could hear it. "Since all she seems to do in it is have sex with Paul."

"Don't be a fuckin' liar, now," Bella said from across the room. "When has that gotten you anywhere?"

"Like you're one to talk," Kim replied. "You've been lying to me the entire time you've been living with me."

"Embry, there are _no_ titties in this movie," Quil said. "All I'm seeing is feet. What the fuck is up with this Tarantino guy?"

"The man likes feet," Embry said. "And if _you_ guys—Kim, Bella—wanna fight, take it outside."

"No, actually," Bella said, leaning forward. "Kim wants to make it problem so bad. _Now_ I guess it's a problem. Let's just address it."

Kim could feel herself shaking already. "Bella, _you're_ a problem. You're an awful person."

"Wait, did I miss something?" Leah asked Kim. "Besides the fact that she and Paul are fucking?"

"Oh, _please_ ," Bella replied to Kim. "I didn't do shit to you. You just take everything so fucking personal."

"It's pretty hard to take the fact that I had a _neighbor_ complain to me about you and Paul having sex in _my_ condo—four times."

"Okay, we get it—you're jealous of me and Paul. I don't care about that, Kim. Just leave him out of it. You still can't even say what I did to you because I've done _nothing_ to you."

"You _know_ what you did, Bella," Kim said. "See, that's what I hate about you the most. You act like it's never your fault. You fucking hurt me and now you decided you didn't. You can't fucking do that. And even then, you're as stupid as everyone says you are."

"You know what, Kim?" Bella said, her voice louder. " _You're_ just like everyone else—you're a fucking shark, and I hate you for it."

"Okay, but that's not what you were saying when your head was between my legs!"

The movie was paused. Everyone was silent. Paul was completely unfazed.

Kim hadn't meant to turn Emily's pseudo-birthday party into her own coming out party.

"Did I miss something?" Leah asked again.

Quil was smiling into his phone as he recorded this confrontation. "This is way better than titties."

Seth hit him in the shoulder. "Do _not_ do it for the Vine," he said.

Kim wasn't entirely regretful, however. As an afterthought, she told Bella, "You gave really good head, though. I'll miss that." Then she stood up and got all her things together, preparing to leave.

"We're snowed in," Jacob protested. "It's not that safe to drive right now."

"I'll be fine," she assured him. She waved goodbye to her actual friends and left. The coldness stayed in the living room.

Quil, who had already put his phone down, slowly turned to look at Bella. "Wait," he said slowly. "You fucked _Kim_?"

Bella just nodded. "I fucked Kim."

"Paul," Leah said. "You're fucking _Bella_?"

He just rolled his eyes back. "We're just friends, but yeah."

"I thought Kim was lying when she told me she was gay," Jacob said.

"Jake, you're so dumb," Emily said.

"So who's actually gay?" Sam asked.

"It doesn't even matter," Bella said, "but Kim is."

"Well, congratulations, Bella," Leah said. "You've fucked the most people out of a group of nine within a year. How do you feel?"

"I feel like I'm missing my prize," she said sarcastically.

"Don't worry—it's on the way."

Bella gave her the finger and a dumb facial expression. Leah gave it back.

"So if this petty party is all done," Emily said, "I'd love to get back to the movie. It's my birthday, you know."

"You're birthday's tomorrow," Sam said, "but nice try. For real, though, let's put the movie back on." And they did. The group, down to nine, kept drinking and eating and laughing and talking as they watched a handful of movies through the night.

Every hour, Leah kept hoping Kim would come back, but she never did. That was a whole person, a whole ten percent, of the group gone. She wasn't happy about it, but she wasn't sad, either. It meant that Kim was through with giving chances to those who didn't deserve.

It meant that Kim was done with being nice, and nobody in the world needed to go through that more than she had.

Leah was damn proud of her.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Up next is some Leah x Kim, naturally._

 _Thanks as always and of course, tell me how you feel,_

 _HS_


	59. LIX

_**A/N:** I don't own the Twilight Saga. At all. Ever._

 _So here is chapter 59 of Static. I know it's been a little while, but this chapter has taken a while. It's been retooled a couple times because I just wasn't happy with what was going on, and it turned out to be a pretty long chapter despite all the cuts I've made to it. This chapter includes a throwback to chapter one and a whole lot more. It takes place three days after the last chapter._

 _I have kind of a big point to make later, so stick around after the jump if you care to read it._

 _Enjoy._

 **LIX.**

 _i'm not in the swing of things_  
 _but what I really mean is_  
 _not in the swing of things yet_

* * *

Leah was busing tables at Floriano's the following Monday afternoon and thinking about what might have been if she hadn't sabotaged her own internship at Howard Plath when she saw Seth, her mother, and Charlie all enter the restaurant. They looked really happy and it really freaked her out.

She stopped in her tracks, dropping the rag onto the table. Then she made sure her boss wasn't around and approached them carefully like they were her alien mother and alien sibling and alien… mother's significant other.

Sue greeted her with a hug, and Leah knew something was different. Sue was never this nice. Ever.

"What's going on?" she asked. "Are you alright?"

"Lee-Lee, I've gone into partial remission. The tumor has gone down sixty-five percent. We're going in the right direction."

Leah just covered her own mouth and braced for the tears that would come pouring out.

Sue started to wipe them away the second they arrived. "Sweetie, don't cry. Whatcha crying for?"

"I'm so happy for you, Ma."

* * *

Leah's boss let her go forty-five minutes early since it wasn't that busy, and she was informed by her brother that they would be getting a new car. Sue and Charlie had gone in the police Cruiser, so the siblings had a moment as they followed them to the Ford dealership in Port Angeles, just minutes away from Floriano's. Driving was easier since the rain had washed all the snow out within two days.

"You and Charlie have been saving up for a _car_?" she asked incredulously.

"Yeah," Seth said. "I've been getting a whole bunch of hours, and Charlie's really helping out. It's for me and Mom to share."

"Seth, you can keep this car for yourself," Leah said. "I know I drive it everywhere, but I can take the bus to school and work from now on. You let Mom get the new one to herself so you can have this one to yourself."

"No offense, Lee," he replied, "but you're kinda old."

"Oh, really?"

"What I mean is that we don't have to share. If you can get _this_ car to yourself, then you won't have to hang around the house so much. Know what I mean? You get to do what you want. You don't have to watch Mom all the time and drive her to all of her appointments."

"But that doesn't mean _you_ have to babysit her," she said. "I can already tell you're gonna have big things coming to you after graduation. I don't wanna hold you back."

"Lee, it's fine," he told her. "Really. Just keep the car." He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for calling you a jinx back at the hospital a couple months ago. I didn't mean it. It's not your fault that Mom got cancer, and I don't think things are gonna get worse if you have what you need to get out of the house. You're not a jinx at all. I can take care of her. Charlie can take care of her. You've just gotta take care of yourself."

And all this time, she had thought Seth had grown to resent her.

They approached the car dealership. She turned into the gravel driveway and looked at her brother. "Thank you, Seth," she said.

He nodded, and she felt the weight of the world in guilt being lifted from her shoulders.

* * *

Leah sat in her kitchen chair by the land line much later that night. Seth and Sue were out taking the new car for a spin, and Leah was trying to figure out what to do next. She didn't have work tomorrow. She could blow off class if she made plans. But she just had to make plans.

So she called up Kim.

She didn't sound tired at all when she answered the phone. "Hey, Leah, what's up?"

"Bambi," Leah began, her voice sweet as honey.

"Lee-Lee."

"I hear that you lost a hundred and thirty pounds yesterday. I wanted to know your secret."

"Well, I'd like to thank lying, cheating, and the invalidation of my gay-ass feelings. Anything is possible if you just believe."

"So you do have a vacancy in your condo, after all?"

"She literally just moved out yesterday."

"At least she was quick. What do you think about me moving in?"

"Honestly," Kim replied, "a sewer rat could move in as long as it helps pay the bills. You down?"

"I'm down."

"Think you can start packing tonight? I don't have anything to do until three tomorrow."

"I can be at your place in an hour and a half. I don't have that much stuff."

"Okay, sweet. But Lee?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are you so eager to get out all of a sudden, with your mom dealing with..." She held the _c-_ word back between her teeth.

"She's entered partial remission. She's not cured, and we won't know for a long time, but she's getting better. Also, they're giving me the car so I can do what I want now. I won't feel so guilty for not being able to take care of her all the time."

"That's good. I'm glad you're getting to do what you want."

"Me, too," Leah admitted. "I just want her to be okay."

"Me, too. We all do."

They were silent for a moment, and then Leah asked, "Hey, Kim?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't know exactly how to move out. Can you come help me pack?"

* * *

Leah was moved in by two the next day. She didn't really have a lot of things to bring with her, and her area was almost completely empty. (Bella had forgotten some things.) The neighbors must have thought that Kim was crazy for having so many people move in and move out already. This would be permanent, though. Both Leah and Kim knew it.

They ordered a pizza and turned on MTV. It felt as natural as ever.

"Did you ever think we'd actually live together?" Leah wondered. "I know we talked about it all the time when we were little but did you ever think that we'd follow through?"

Kim's eyes stayed on the television screen. The commercials had just ended and _Selena_ was back on. "I mean, I would spend the night at your house literally every weekend until we were fifteen," she replied. "And all we did was eat food and watch _Selena_ , anyway, so this isn't that different."

"Except we have to pay bills now," Leah added.

"Oh, yeah. Shit."

Leah focused on the movie, and because she knew that movie like the back of her hand, she noticed when it skipped a scene in order to suit the running time that MTV had allotted. "I _can't_ believe they skipped that scene," she said, her tone of voice actually upset. "I miss my VCR."

"I think your mom would kill you if you took it with you," Kim said.

"Ugh. I know."

"You could just buy another one."

"Yeah, right. VCR's are back in because they're _vintage_." Leah rolled her eyes back to the sun. "I'm just poor."

"At least we have a DVD player," Kim pointed out.

"That's nowhere near the same thing."

Kim rolled her eyes and picked up another slice of pizza from the box on the table. "You're unbelievable."

Leah gave her a huge grin. "You know it, roomie."

Kim glanced at her watch. "I don't wanna go to work tonight," she said.

"What do you even _do_ at the gym besides make people suffer?"

"I usually just take measurements and stuff, but I've mostly been making calls to people who haven't been in in a while. I make them feel guilty for having lives outside of the gym and make them schedule appointments with me to get back on track."

"So you get lied to right in your face, basically."

"Basically. And I have to straight up tell people to get back in the gym because they've gained weight." She guiltily stared down at her slice of pizza and then tossed the plate onto the table. "And I'm also partly in charge of cancellations, so I have to hear people's sad excuses as to why they can't give up thirty minutes of their day to hop on an elliptical as easily as they can give up forty dollars a month."

"God, _that's_ embarrassing," Leah said, her voice flat.

"I know." Then Kim's phone lit up from the table, shaking violently. She answered the call and brought the phone up to her ear. "Eric? Yeah, what's going on? You need me _now_? Okay… Okay. I'll be there in ten." Then she bolted from the couch like a bullet and went to change clothes.

Leah just watched the television, watched all the skipped scenes from her favorite movie. She was so offended by the time she turned it off. That was when Kim emerged from their room in an ensemble that was respectable for an athletic club.

"I don't know when I'll be back," she told Leah. "Emma called out sick and they need someone to cover all her appointments. I'll probably be up there until nine."

"Have fun."

"I'll try. Call me if you need anything." Then she practically ran out of the condo.

* * *

That day, Leah had become a resident of Forks. Not officially, but she had finally gotten off the reservation. It was a cheesy concept in media and even in real life, especially with people her age: _Get off the rez. Go make something out of yourself._

That just wasn't the case.

Living on the rez sucked sometimes, but getting away didn't solve all the problems a native could possibly face in their entire life. Leah had grown up poor, but since she had been off the rez for a good eight hours, she wasn't any different. She didn't feel whiter or look whiter. She didn't walk whiter or talk whiter. She could go up a level and move to Seattle, get a job with Amazon, and live in a nice house on Lake Union. Shit, she could have _not_ fucked up her ACL and be a student at the University of Pennsylvania, doing what she liked to do best: hoop. She could do all that but she would still be a Quileute. She might just lose the little bit of the language taught to her at the age of six, but she would still be a Quileute. She would always be one.

And besides—the _swish_ of a net at the park at First Beach sounded just the same as the _swish_ of a net at a college gymnasium. There just wasn't any money behind the former.

When she drove back to La Push that afternoon, determined to steal her old VCR for a couple hours, the Quileute reservation hit her right back. She didn't feel herself becoming any poorer or browner. She just felt herself _be_.

Luckily, nobody was home when Leah stole a VCR that was really hers. She strapped down the player as well as the sacred _Selena_ VHS tape in the passenger seat, and she was about to speed off to her new home in Forks until she noticed that the _Check Engine Oil_ light was on. She'd never seen that before.

She drove past Jacob's house, and in the distance, she could see that his garage was open.

She had never swerved that 1992 Nissan Sentra so quick.

Jacob ran out of his garage, wondering where all the tire squealing was coming from, and Leah nearly ran him over. He leaped out of the way, and she slammed down on the brakes.

"What the hell, Leah?" he shouted.

"Could you please just let me know that my car isn't gonna blow up?" she asked.

* * *

They sat in his garage minutes later as he was finishing up on her car.

"All you needed was an oil change," he asked her.

"Wait, really?" she asked him. "That's it?"

"That's it. Your car's really low on miles for its age. How often do you drive?"

"Me, just about every day. But my parents—my mom, I mean—doesn't really drive it."

"Oh, yeah, you guys just got a new car, right?"

She nodded. "My mom did."

He began to put all his tools away. "How's she been?"

"She's been good. She's been going into therapy every day and all. She's entered partial remission."

"So she's getting there," he concluded.

"Damn right she is."

"You're super positive," he said bluntly as he sat down in a chair across from her in the garage. "About your mom's recovery, I mean."

She furrowed her brows. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know, since cancer is so unpredictable and all that."

"Well, she has still a chance," Leah stated. "I just want her to be alright again. It'll be a while, but maybe I just want to have a little hope for once."

"Hope," he said thoughtfully.

"What?"

"That's new."

"Maybe to you. No offense, Jake, but you're the most hopeless person I know." Her face was expressionless, and that was the way it ought to be. She ought to tell it like it is since lying had never made anybody feel good.

His reaction was enough to make up for her deadpan expression. "Okay, _wow._ That was a little unwarranted."

"Jake, I'm sorry," she said with a huge grin on her face. "But you've spent all this time minding your own business and keeping quiet about _everything_. It's depressing and I'm already depressed."

He smiled, amused. "Are you calling me _boring_?"

She nodded. "Oh, yeah, for sure."

"But you're here," he pointed out. "And I'm already done with your car."

She nodded again. "And?"

"Wanna get out of here?"

"Sure, but you're driving."

* * *

It turned out that Leah had never been to Ocean Shores, Jacob hadn't gone since he'd been a kid, and it was a two and a half hour drive. It also turned out that even though Jacob was the most hopeless person Leah knew, she had nothing but time on her hands.

Leah flipped through stacks and stacks of postcards from Rebecca, Jacob's sister. He had received one every week from what seemed like the beginning of time, and he still got them. Every design of every postcard was of the cheesy tourist sort—a pretty beach, some nice trees, coconuts, _Aloha_. The works. Leah quickly read them over, went over the key points. Up until even the most recent letters, Rebecca was in love with her life.

"Damn," Leah said. "She just keeps writing and writing."

"Yeah," Jacob replied. "I think she's writing a book."

"She started ten postcards ago," Leah clarified. "She stopped three postcards ago. Does Rachel write to you this often?"

"She lives in this century, so no," he said. "She just calls every once in a while. She's busy."

"What does she do now?"

"She's busting her ass working for Microsoft."

"Oh, _fuck_ yeah. That's money right there."

"Yeah, I guess," he said absentmindedly, his eyes on the road.

"Do you miss them?" she wondered. "Your sisters?"

"I'd say that I do," he replied, "but I know they're out there doing what they want, and I can't wish them anything but to be happy."

Leah caught a twinge of sadness. She didn't know shit about forgiveness or patience or anything. She just didn't _know._

"What are we gonna do in Ocean Shores?" she asked.

"I don't even know if there _is_ anything to do," he admitted. "I mean, there's a beach."

"Oh, boy," she said sarcastically. "Another beach."

"C'mon, Lee. Beaches are cool."

His argument wasn't that convincing. "Whatever, Jake."

And that was the nature of the banter for the rest of the trip. They didn't get too deep again, but it didn't feel forced. It felt like they were friends, and it felt real.

* * *

It was getting dark when Jacob led Leah out to the beach of Ocean Shores. It was a quiet beach. A real beach. It wasn't just a bunch of little rocks. It had soft sand and it felt more like home than First Beach. It felt like _their_ beach, empty and cold. Pure.

It was February, too cold to ever enjoy the beach for real, but Jacob was pulsating with a warmth that Leah could catch onto.

He led her far out, almost to where the ocean kissed the sand. They stood in near silence, the wind whistling around them.

When Jacob opened his mouth, his hot breath filled the air. "I haven't been here since the summer my mom died," he said.

"We were nine," she whispered.

He nodded. "Look," he told her. "I'm sorry I'm so out of the loop. I'm sorry I'm so boring. I like being alone sometimes, but… But when you're here with me, I don't wanna feel alone anymore."

"No, I get it," she said. "But you don't have to feel that way. Not anymore."

She felt their hands come together, and she didn't feel so empty. He didn't feel so cold. They were still pure.

"I promise," she told him.

* * *

They ended up at the bowling alley in Ocean Shores, where the pizza there was better than Forks' finest and the staff didn't care enough to card them for beer. They sat side by side at a table, watching the locals bowl since neither of them cared for the game and Jacob's feet were too big for any of the shoes available.

"What went down at your house the other day was _so_ wild," Leah said. "Like, I'm surprised nobody socked Bella in the face for that shit."

"I'm surprised _you_ didn't sock her in the face," Jacob said. "Deadass, I thought you were gonna fuck her up."

"That would have been mean," she replied, straight-faced as the neon lights moved across the room. Then she cracked up. "Nah, I was actually kinda out of it."

"How in the hell could you be out of it when Kim said, 'You gave really good head, though. I'll miss that.'"

"That, I didn't miss," Leah said. "But I wasn't gonna fight Bella for a show. If I were to do anything, it would be _for_ Kim _because_ she was there. It just kills me how nobody else gave a fuck. Even when Bella stuck around and had people asking her about the wild details of her fucking Kim, not one person asked her, 'Why are you such a horrible person?' Nobody did, but _I_ should've. Then I decided it didn't matter because Kim was gone, and we knew Bella would go about her Bella ways and complicate things."

"How much do you hate her?"

"She's fucked up a whole lot," Leah admitted, "but I don't hate the girl. It's crazy how everyone talks _so_ much shit about her like she's a celebrity or something. Like, shit, she's not fucking Kim Kardashian. She's a broke-ass kid going through some shit like the rest of us. So I can't really hate her. But that doesn't mean I'll ever like her. What about you?"

"I just feel like an idiot every time I see her," he said.

Leah took a sip of her Coke. "Why's that?"

"I had so many opportunities to make things right with her," he explained. "And I fucked up all of them because I'm stuck on changing myself as little as possible."

"Hey, don't be so damn hard on yourself," she told him. "It's not entirely your fault that you guys didn't work out. She's weird. She doesn't like to stay in one place and she sure as shit can't keep her word. That's why she and Paul are _best friends_." She rolled her eyes. "And besides, what you want when you're seventeen, eighteen isn't always what you want when you're twenty. I would know all about that."

"So you don't want Paul anymore?"

She shook her head. "He's fucking dead to me." She wasn't sure if she meant it. "He's a ghost. He's always around but he's never there. He's gone but he just can't _stay_ gone. And the worst thing about it is that…" She inhaled deeply and then let it all go. "I still see him as a real person, but he can't see me at all."

"I'm sorry about that, Leah."

"It's not your fault."

"Yeah, but nobody should put up with that shit. Not even you."

She smiled, but tears had already formed in her eyes. "Not even a bitch like me?"

"You're not a bitch to me," he said.

She pouted her lips. "My hero."

Then they cracked up, and she regretted every little mean thing she'd uttered about him.

The regret stayed with her as they drove back home that night, and they hadn't returned to the rez soil until nearly ten. They were approaching his garage, and when they finally pulled up to the outside of it, Leah unbuckled her seat belt but didn't leave the car. "Thanks for taking me out today," she said. "I needed to get away."

"Me, too," he said. "And Leah?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry for kissing you like that back in December."

"It's okay," she said. "I don't hate you for it."

"Do you hate me at all?"

She thought about it for a moment. "No," she finally said. "I don't hate you."

"I guess I don't hate you, either."

She smiled. "Good. I'll see you later, okay?"

"Alright. Have a good night, Lee."

"You, too, Jake."

Then she left the car and went to her own, waiting inside the garage. She drove out, and when she passed Jacob's car, he was already gone.

* * *

It wasn't until she was already at the front door of her new home that Leah realized she didn't even have a house key. She was about to check underneath the fake plant next to the door, and then she realized she watched too many movies and that Kim wasn't that stupid.

Trying to balance the VCR and VHS tape of _Selena_ in one arm, she rang the doorbell, and Kim answered promptly, holding up a key with a know-it-all look on her face.

"Soon you'll have two keys," she said, "since Bella hasn't come by to return hers yet. Two is better than none, though."

"Hey, roomie," Leah greeted her uneasily.

"I was worried you got into a wreck trying to find the place," Kim said, shutting the door behind them as they entered the condo. "Where ya been?"

"Don't hate me," Leah began, setting down the VCR and VHS tape on the floor near the TV, "but I was with Jacob."

"Why would I hate you for hanging out with Jacob? Are you okay? Also, why did you steal your mom's VCR?"

"I'm fine," Leah replied. "I took it because I can't stand watching my favorite movie on MTV. And I don't know, I didn't tell you I was leaving. How was work?"

Kim sat down on the couch, and Leah followed. "I got to tell two people they were fat _and_ I canceled three memberships. I started four more, though, which was fun. It was really a lot of paperwork."

"Oh, nice. At least you had something to do." Then she paused. "What do you think of Jacob?"

"I _don't_ think of Jacob," Kim said. "Why?"

"Well, I hung out with him today, and somehow, I don't hate him."

"Leah Clearwater _doesn't_ hate a boy she's talking to?" Kim asked dramatically, throwing a hand over her heart. "Groundbreaking."

"Kim, it's not funny, though!" Leah cried. "I might be catching positive feelings for an organism of the male specimen for the first time in a while."

"It's a nice surprise," Kim said. "I mean, I never thought you'd get over Paul in your entire life."

"That's actually kind of insulting and I'm questioning our friendship," Leah said.

"You got over him, though. I mean, who were you with after him besides the married guy?"

"Don't make me throw up," Leah said, covering her eyes. Then she looked up. "I also fucked that guy from high school, but that's about it."

"That was honestly the worst night ever," Kim recalled.

"Yeah, definitely."

"But on to Jacob. Does he respect you?"

"What the hell do you mean?"

"Does he call you his Pocahontas?"

The flashbacks of that horrible night of their sophomore year, the night Leah had lost her virginity to a neo-John Smith, came flooding into her mind. "Oh, my _God_."

"For real, though, Lee, does he respect you or doesn't he?"

"Yeah, he respects me," Leah said. "I'd bite his head off if he didn't. The fuck?"

"Does he respect himself?"

"What?"

"Does he respect himself?" Kim repeated. "Or is he still the low-life, self-hating, piece of shit you've been calling him behind his back forever?"

"Oh my God, I am an awful person," Leah said bluntly.

"Not awful," Kim clarified. "You've just talked a lot of shit."

"Okay, so are we here to discuss my possible feelings for Jacob or are we here to roast me?"

"We're here because we live here?"

"You're snappy as fuck, Kim. You know you're my soul mate, right? No homo."

"Alright, discussion over," Kim said.

"No, no, Kim, what do you _mean_ by Jacob respecting himself, though? What does that mean?"

"At this point, he just seems like damaged goods. Like, damaged to the point that it's not even good anymore."

"He's a little hurt still," Leah admitted, "but he doesn't think much of himself to begin with. I can understand why being with Bella made him feel like he was worth something. She can really make someone feel better about themselves for a little while."

Kim rolled her eyes. "Trust me, I know."

"How weird does that feel?" Leah wondered. "To think that you and Jacob were both damaged by the same person?"

"I _don't_ think of it like that," Kim said defensively.

"Okay, well, Jacob's a little damaged, I guess," Leah said, moving on. She'd heard enough about Bella and she hadn't seen her once today. "But he's okay."

"Are you gonna stick around and try to build him up, then?"

"It's not even that deep," Leah said, "but no. I _hate_ that shit. The girl is always supposed to be a ride or die or whatever, fucking around with a guy who doesn't have his head on straight or his money good and is actively encouraged to stay by his side and help him be a man. We have to stick around and be patient for a work in progress. But the second a girl doesn't have all her shit together and a guy wants to get with her, she's supposed to swoon and blush and tell him that because she doesn't love herself, nobody else is allowed to love her. And even when she gets all her shit together and starts loving herself, she's suddenly too much of a bitch to have a man. Fuck all that shit."

"Lee, you're my best friend and I love you," Kim began, "but you really made it _that_ deep."

"Sorry, Bambi. And sorry for not being more… inclusive in my example."

"I'm bi, so it's all good."

"So is it that some days you feel like dick and others you feel like pussy?" Leah asked. "Just wondering."

"Once again," Kim said, "you're my best friend and I love you, so I'll be super patient. But no. It's not like that. I just like both, you know?"

"But you haven't been with a guy since high school."

"That doesn't really mean anything. I still like both. If I'm all about salad one day and the next day I have soup, it doesn't mean I don't like salad anymore. It just means I'm enjoying some soup."

"Salads are disgusting," Leah said, "but I get it."

They both laughed.

"Thanks," Kim said.

"And if someone wants to get on your nerves about how you feel about either food—gender—then I'll beat their fuckin' ass."

"That works for me. I'll be right back—I gotta pee."

Kim got up, and Leah sat in silence for a few moments, feeling one hundred percent unresolved about Jacob. They hadn't done a thing tonight, but she still felt strange all over. Maybe it was okay to have something other than rage, sarcasm, and sly digs exist in her entire body.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Leah knew Kim wouldn't order pizza twice in one day, so she had no idea who it could be.

Leah didn't think to peer through the peephole before opening the door, so the visitor took her by surprise. It was Bella. She held a small stack of clothing and a gift bag.

"Oh, wow," Leah said sarcastically. "Here to return my house key?"

"I didn't know you lived here," Bella said.

"Well, now you know."

"I just need to tie a few loose ends," she explained. "Then I'll be on my way."

"You finally took a dick out of your mouth to do that?" Leah asked. "After two whole days? That's really noble of you."

Bella sighed. "I just wanted to say sorry."

"It wasn't _me_ who you outed in front of everybody, so..."

"Get over yourself, Leah. I wanted to say sorry to Kim. And where is she?"

"She's in the bathroom."

"Can you give her these clothes for me once she's out, then?" Bella offered Leah the stack.

Leah took it. "Thanks. Do you have my house key, though?"

Bella dug in the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out a key. "There you go."

"Thanks again."

"No problem. And, Lee, I'm sorry to you, too. I really am."

"Is this so you can fuck Paul without remorse?" Leah asked. "Is that it? Because I could care less about whatever you do with him."

"You _couldn't_ care less," Bella corrected her, her voice unbothered.

"What?"

"When you say you _could_ care less, it implies that you care, even just a little bit."

"This isn't the Disney Channel. You know what the hell I mean."

"Well, this has nothing to do with Paul," Bella said. "It's just that I've messed up a lot, especially with you, and..." She hesitated.

"And what?" Leah prompted.

"My dad really wants to propose to your mom. That's what."

Leah shouldn't have been that shocked, but the news hit her like a bolt of lightning, anyway.

"I know," Bella said. "So I guess I'll be on my way."

"Thanks for apologizing," Leah said.

"Thanks for listening. Oh, and I almost forgot." She handed Leah the gift bag in her hand. Leah just stared at it.

"It's a fucking DVD," Bella said defensively. "Not Pandora's box."

Leah took the bag. "Thanks."

"Paul says it's your favorite, and I heard about how much your mom loves her VCR. See ya." Then she turned to the stairway and left.

Leah shut the door and went back inside. Kim was just coming out of the bathroom.

"Was someone at the door?" she asked.

Leah nodded. "Yeah, it was just Bella. She came by with some of your clothes. Oh, and the other house key."

"Is that what's in the bag?"

"Oh, wait," Leah said. Then she stuck her hand in the bag and pulled out a fresh copy of _Selena_ on DVD. She glanced at the stolen VCR next to the TV set, and then back at the DVD.

 _My mom's gonna kill me,_ she thought.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks so much for reading this entire chapter. If not, thanks for attempting to read this entire chapter._

 _So I know since the publishing of chapter 58, there's been drama on the review page. All I really have to say about it is that if you are at all concerned with the careless ways I seem to treat this story, privately message me so we can discuss them. I love feedback, but I don't love arguments in the reviews based on how much or how little I know what I'm doing with my story. Let me tell you right now: I know what I'm doing, and that's all there really is to it. I'm just here to share my little Twilight fanfiction to my little audience. Nothing more, nothing less._

 _That being said, let's keep it moving._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	60. LX

_**A/N:** I do not own Twilight. That's all Stephenie Meyer's. Anyways, thank you all so much for the feedback and support for the last chapter! I'm glad the general response to Leah was positive. This chapter, chapter 60 (!), also begins a little arc that Kim will have. This chapter is specifically easier on the eyes than the last one, I'll admit. It's shorter and composes of a lot of snappy dialogue. It also features the return of an old character._

 _Thanks for sticking around and of course, enjoy._

 **LX.**

 _when you diss me, you diss yourself_  
 _don't hurt yourself_

* * *

The next morning, Kim and Leah woke up to the latter girl's alarm clock. It was a school day and they missed the weekend dearly.

Leah glanced at the gift bag on her bedside table. "I can't believe I woke up in the correct century," she mumbled.

Kim rubbed her eyes as she yawned. "What?"

"I get to watch _Selena_ on DVD now. What a miracle."

Kim rolled over to her stomach. "So Bella's your new best friend?"

Leah snorted. "You're _funny._ She apologized to me last night, though, when she came by."

"And you didn't start swinging at her? That's crazy."

"What can I say? I'm grown. Oh, and guess what? She told me her dad wants to propose to my mom."

"You're kidding."

"God, I wish I was."

"So you and Bella are basically stepsisters."

"Not yet."

"But you will be."

Leah was silent.

"Sorry," Kim said. "That sucks."

"It's okay. But you're more of my sister than she'll ever be, no matter what."

"Okay, good. At least she apologized, though. Like that means anything."

"She also wanted to say sorry to you," Leah recalled.

"Oh, for what?"

"Probably for outing you in front of everyone the other night."

"It's not even that big of a deal anymore," Kim said. "I guess we're all kind of friends, anyway, and who are they gonna tell? Everybody we know was already there."

"True," Leah agreed. "And nobody really cares that you're gay. Bi, I mean."

"Yeah. I'm still a little embarrassed about the whole thing with Bella, though."

"Why?" Leah asked. "You just said it's not a big deal."

"Because I was stupid enough..." Kim began. Then she yawned. "I was stupid enough to think that she was _the one_. I know that sounds corny—"

"Yeah, that's super corny."

"I know. But I was really stupid enough to think all that." Kim frowned. "Like, I got so comfortable with her so quickly. I thought we were gonna be a couple. I was gonna finally have a _girlfriend_ instead of pretending that I still talk to Jared. I was seriously about to come out to my parents. I was so ready for her to be my girlfriend, and then she just broke it. And what has me the most embarrassed is the fact that I fell for a straight girl, which has gotta be breaking tons of rules."

"Wait, you _fell_ for Bella?" Leah asked. "Like, truly fell for her?"

"I thought I did. In hindsight, I don't know."

"Well, you can always do better," Leah said. "Bella's just some asshole, anyway."

"I know," Kim said. "I know."

"What are you into?" Leah wondered. "Dimples? A juicy ass? Gemini? Just let me know when you wanna go girl hunting—I probably have a camouflage jacket somewhere."

Kim burst into laughter. "Oh my God, shut _up_."

"Just here to help, Bambi."

Kim picked up her cell phone from her bedside table, next to the shitty lamp (which was still broken). She had twelve notifications and they were all from… the Vine app?

"Can you tell me why Quil made a _Vine_ of me calling out Bella in front of everybody?" Kim asked Leah as she stared at her screen.

"I have a flip phone, remember?" Leah replied as she began to climb out of bed. "With prepaid minutes. What's a Vine?"

The six-second video was mostly just an unflattering angle of Quil's face as he reacted to Kim expressing that Bella's head had been between her legs, as well as barely audible clips of Kim and Bella arguing. The video was spliced in an awkward, nearly comedic way.

Leah sat down next to Kim and looked at the video, which looped over and over again. "Wow," she said. "I didn't know Quil was a cinematographer."

"He's not," Kim said, annoyed. "He's just a dickhead. I didn't even know he _had_ a smart phone."

"Quil has, like, three phones."

"Yeah, and they're all burners so I don't get it."

Kim scrolled down to the stats of the video, which had gotten over four thousand hits. She didn't understand how _that_ happened, but she found herself much more confused at the fact that Jared Cameron, who she hadn't even _thought_ of in forever, had tagged her in the comments of the video. His comments were along the lines of, _"What?"_ There were plenty of comments that featured strings of multiple question marks.

"What's the point in Jared tagging me in any of this?" Kim asked nobody in particular.

"I wouldn't even be worried about it," Leah said. "He's irrelevant." She got up from the bed and started to head to the kitchen.

Kim looked up, her face concerned. "Do you think he's mad at me?"

"Why would he be? You're not dating, and if anything, he should be mad at himself for clearly not being enough for you. He should also be mad at _Bella_ for giving better head than him. Now, come on—we have school."

Kim snapped out of it the best that she could, but even as she quickly got dressed for school (which nicely doubled as her outfit for work later on), she couldn't shake the idea that Jared was about to become a lot more present in her life.

* * *

It had started with a phone call that Tuesday afternoon. At first, it seemed as mundane and slightly off as any other phone call with a distant area code. Kim had deleted Jared's number last summer when she had realized he'd wanted nothing to do with her, but since she was done with classes for the day and back at home until work later that afternoon, she didn't think much of the chance that he would call her.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Hey, Kim," a deeper voice said, "it's me."

"Uh, who is this?"

"Jared? Jared Cameron? Don't tell me you forgot about me."

"Oh, hey! I'd never forget—it's just that it's been a while. How are you?"

"I've been good," he said. "How are things with you?"

"Things are great. Really great. Are you still living in Seattle?"

He cleared his throat. "Yeah, but I'm actually in Forks right now."

"Oh, what for?" she asked casually, like this kind of thing happened every day.

"I had to pick up some things from my parents' place. They keep getting my mail, you know."

"Yeah, I definitely know all about that. I just got my own place in town."

"No shit? I'm real happy for you, Kim." He didn't sound that happy at all; his tone was tinted with resentment.

She played along, anyway. "Thanks."

"Do you wanna go get a coffee?" he asked suddenly.

"Um, sure," she said, caught off guard. "I only have a little while, though. I've got work at four."

"We've got time," he said enthusiastically. "I can pick you up in five."

"It's fine," she replied. "We can just meet up and—"

"Come on," he insisted. "My treat."

She thought for a moment and decided it really wasn't a big deal. "Okay." Then she gave him her address, and he was over in three.

She climbed into his car, a rundown lemon that she should have expected from a U-Dub undergraduate. In mostly silence, they drove the coffee shop in town, and when they both got out of the car, he finally hugged her. She hadn't noticed when she first saw him, but he was bulkier now. Then she remembered he was a college quarterback, so he had to be pretty big, anyway.

"Jeez, Jared," she said as she got out of the hug. "You're a monster. What's in the water over at U-Dub?"

"Aw, you know," he replied as he opened the door to the shop.

It was a busy afternoon for the coffee shop, so Jared and Kim had to sit at a table in the middle of the room.

"Wow," Jared said, looking down at his menu. "This place hasn't changed a damn bit."

"I know," Kim replied. "That's what I like about it. Hey, Jillian." She looked up at the waitress, a taller blonde with dimples, who had just approached them, and she let Jared order first.

"And the usual for you?" Jillian asked.

Kim smiled and nodded. "Of course."

Jillian left, and Kim looked back to Jared, who had a semi-confused/semi-disgusted look to his face.

"What's wrong?" Kim asked.

He nodded his head in Jillian's direction. "That," he said. "That's what's wrong."

"Jillian's a great employee, don't worry," Kim replied. "She won't spit in your drink."

"Damn it, Kim," he said a little louder. "What made you become a _dyke_ all of a sudden?"

She felt the eyes of strangers all over her. "It's not a choice," she said quietly. "And besides, whoever I'm with has exactly nothing to do with you."

"I just need to know," he replied, lowering his voice. "It's just..." He looked around. "It's making me look bad. That's all."

" _Me_ loving who _I_ want is making _you_ look bad?" Kim asked. "You've been living in Seattle for years now. Nobody has even thought of you. _I_ certainly haven't. And, anyway, all you know about me is the abridged version that your boy Quil posted in a damn Vine video, so you should talk to him about making you look bad."

"I see you're still a fucking bitch like Leah," he said brightly.

"And I've never been happier," she replied. "Honestly, Jared, we're not getting anywhere like this, you're not going to humiliate me in this coffee shop, and I have to get ready for work. I'll see you later."

She got up and pushed her chair in. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her in closer to him. She tried to get away, but he wasn't even close to letting go.

"Watch what you're doing," he told her. "'Cause I'll fix your fucking condition if I have to." Then he let her go, slightly pushing her away. "Slut."

"Stay the fuck away from me," she said. "Douchebag." Then she left the shop and sped off to work, clocking on an hour early.

* * *

Kim waited up for Leah after work that night. Even though she had acted like a badass in the coffee shop, she was truly afraid. The moment that Jared had called her a slut had been the moment everything bad about high school had come back to her. She was merely not okay.

Leah entered the condo, rapping to herself under her breath as she slipped off her shoes and coat. "'Cause that's what a motherfucking monster do. Hairdresser from Milan, that's the monster 'do. Monster Giuseppe heel, that's the monster— _shit,_ Kim!"

Kim sat on the living room couch with a bowl of soup in her hands and a sad expression on her face, looking more or less like a neglected puppy. "Sorry for scaring you, Lee."

"No, no, it's okay." Leah sat down on the couch next to her. " _You_ look scared."

"I saw Jared today."

"Where? _How_?"

"He's picking up some stuff from his parents, I guess. He took me out for coffee, and he was being annoying as usual but what really has me messed up is that I couldn't focus at work because of it."

"Well, what did he say?"

"Nothing too crazy. He just called me a slut and said I was making him look bad, probably because of that video."

Leah closed her eyes and sighed deeply. "I don't understand how you didn't fuck his shit up right then and there."

"Lee, you can't just fight everyone in order to solve your issues."

"But you sure as shit can try."

"Not me. He didn't get it, though. Like, how could _I_ make _him_ look bad when nobody has even thought of him since graduation?"

"Nobody cares about him or his image," Leah said, shaking her head. "That's so fucking self-centered to even assume."

"Exactly! God, Leah, if you were there you would have been _dying_."

"What are you gonna do, then, since you're not gonna fight him?" Leah asked. "Is he leaving town soon or what?"

"I don't know," Kim replied. "And I don't know if he's leaving, either."

"If that was all that he said, then I wouldn't be too worried. He's full of himself—that's not exactly news."

"That's not all he told me, though," Kim said quietly. "He said he'd..." She bit her lip.

"He said he'd what?" Leah prompted.

"He said he'd fix my condition."

"Oh, like, the gay one?" Leah asked. "Like, the one you're born with?"

Kim nodded.

"He's so stupid. Kim, I wouldn't even get hung up over him. He's not gonna do shit to you."

"I don't think he will, either," Kim admitted. "I'm just mad that I was hung up over it in the first place. It shouldn't have messed with me that much."

Leah shrugged. "It happens, I guess."

"I guess. Do you work tomorrow night?"

"No."

Kim's face lit up. "Then you're free?"

"No."

" _Leah_ ," Kim whined.

Leah taunted her tone. _"Kim_."

"What's so important that you have to do tomorrow night?"

"I actually have a date with Jacob."

"Oh," Kim said curtly.

"What do you mean, _oh_?"

"I don't know," Kim replied. "I just thought that you didn't like him that much, or that you don't really know how to feel about him."

"I guess tomorrow I get to figure it out. Or the day after since you need me to stay home so bad."

"No, no," Kim said. "Go off and have fun. You don't have to be confined to the couch like me."

Leah got up, smiling. "Whatever you say, Kim. Let me know when you wanna go girl hunting, though. Like I said, I think I have a camouflage jacket."

"I'll hold you to it," Kim said in response.

Leah went to their room. "Night," she called.

"Night."

Kim returned to her soup and downed a spoonful. In the corner of her vision, her phone lit up on the coffee table. She unlocked it and saw that she had seven text messages and three missed calls, all from the same number. She knew who it was.

She simply cleared the calls and erased the text messages. In her mind, she had deleted Jared just as easily.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	61. LXI

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. So here is chapter 61 of Static. We're still on the Kim thing as of the moment, and I know since I'm updating rather quickly, you may or may not have missed Jared's return in chapter 60. If this is news to you, go back and read the last chapter. If not, go right ahead to this one. Warning: this chapter features violence._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXI.**

 _a smile, a guise_  
 _i'm trying to hide behind tired eyes, i sigh_

* * *

"Kim, I think you're literally trying to kill me."

Kim didn't release her pull on the skin near Leah's eye. "Hold still, okay?"

"Oh my God, change the song," Leah said impatiently.

"Just hold s—"

" _Change the song._ "

Kim picked up her phone from the counter and skipped to the next song on her playlist. The new song was blasted through her Bluetooth speaker which, despite its size, had a lot of power. "Look, Leah, I'm doing you a service. I should be able to choose the music. Hell, you should be paying me for all this."

"Okay, but I hate that song."

It was the following night, and Kim was helping Leah get ready for her date with Jacob. She put her phone and eyeliner down and picked up her tube of mascara.

"Keep your eyes open," she told Leah.

"Is this some new type of eyeliner?" Leah asked, sitting on the toilet seat cover.

"We already did that. Now we need to do mascara."

"Why do you know so much about makeup, Kim?" Leah asked. "You're gay."

"You're dumb. And these are literally basics, but I shouldn't have expected so much from someone who has a flip phone and _isn't_ a drug dealer."

"Fuck outta here."

"Not yet. Almost done."

"I really don't get the point in this," Leah said. "Jacob already knows what I look like, and I don't think two lines on my eyes are gonna change that."

"Duh, he's gonna still recognize you," Kim replied. "This is just a boost. Think of it as an upgrade."

" _Un_ damaged goods."

"Sure. Now look in the mirror and say you like it."

Leah stood up and bent forward in front of the mirror. "I look different."

"Nobody puts on makeup to look the same," Kim said bluntly as she sat down on the edge of the bathtub.

"Well, I will admit, Bambi, these two lines along my eyelids make me look good. They'll have Jacob swooning so hard tonight that he'll impregnate me and once we run off to Vegas to elope, you can be our witness along with Elvis."

"That's the sweetest thing I've ever heard," Kim said sarcastically.

Leah left the bathroom to slip on her dress, a plain black number that ended just above her knees, and then returned to the mirror. She ran a hand through her waist-length hair and smoothed out the dress.

"Do I look alright?" she asked.

"You look great," Kim replied, looking up at her. "You've always been a tall drink of water."

"I just hope he's thirsty tonight."

"It's Jacob—he doesn't have a choice."

"Are you sure you're gonna be okay?" Leah asked. "Because I can just reschedule with him. It's no big deal."

"No," Kim said curtly. "I did your makeup and you look great, so you have to go out. I'm just doing laundry, anyway."

Leah slipped on her strappy heels and laced them up. "Whatever you say."

Then the doorbell rang. "I think that's him," Kim said.

Leah checked her watch. "He's early," she realized.

"Maybe he's just excited. Do you need a condom?"

Leah rolled her eyes. "It's not fucking Prom," she said. "He should already have one." Then she winked.

"Good, because I don't have one, anyway," Kim said, making her way to the front door. "He's waiting."

Leah grabbed her purse and walked out to the entrance as gracefully as she could. "You're not my mom," she said. "I can greet him myself."

"Okay, okay," Kim said, retreating to the couch.

Leah opened the front door and greeted Jacob just as Kim whipped out her cell phone. She took a dozen pictures, leaning over the side of the couch. Leah quickly turned to Kim, rolling her eyes.

"Have fun, kids!" Kim called. She saw Jacob wave to her, but Leah firmly shut the door.

Kim unlocked her phone, went back to the song that Leah hated, and turned the volume even louder, blaring her music throughout the condo just from her speaker. She continued doing laundry—even Leah's, since she was a good person—and managed to clear her mind.

She went to the refrigerator at some point in search of leftover soup, but she paused with her hand on the door handle. Since Leah had moved in, which hadn't been a long time ago, she hadn't personalized the place that much. Taped to the refrigerator were printed images of Leah's favorite singers: Aaliyah, Amy Winehouse, and—of course—Selena. If this was Leah's idea of personalizing, then Kim wasn't surprised.

Laughing to herself, Kim retrieved the soup she was looking for and heated it up in the microwave. While she was waiting, the dryer finished, and Kim made her way over to it. The washer and dryer were in a closet near the front door, and with the music blaring so loud, Kim didn't even notice her front door being opened.

She was bent over in front of the dryer, taking clothes out of it and throwing them into a basket, when she was grabbed by one of her two braids and yanked back forcefully by the waist. She was thrown back and her head was smashed against the carpet when she finally saw her attacker. It was Jared, and he was lunging towards her.

"What the fuck did I tell you?" he asked her, his hands latching on her throat. She was a fraction of a second too late, and her hands were on top of his as she gasped for air.

"Why didn't you listen?" he demanded. His nails began to dig into her skin, and she cried out. That was when he removed one hand to cover her mouth, and she moved swiftly to kick him hard in balls.

He let go, and she began to crawl away in an effort to get to her feet, but he quickly had her by the hair again and began to drag her to her bedroom. She kicked away and yelled, but he was quick and had shut the door behind them.

He threw her onto her bed, and then all she felt was his body on top of hers. He was so heavy and she felt beyond helpless, but that didn't mean she was going to quit.

She kept screaming, and he covered her mouth.

"Keep it down, bitch," he said. "Before I really—"

Then she bit down hard on his hand, tasting blood.

He pulled his hand away yelling, "What the fuck!" and Kim promptly punched him in the nose. He continued to yell, and she kicked him over and over again in the stomach.

Jared reached his hand up, covered in his own blood, and quickly brought it down to slap her across the face. She heard his knuckles crack as he hit her, but she tried not to become too shocked by it. She was ruled by rage. She kicked him in the balls again, this time taking advantage of the fact that he was halfway off the bed. He fell, and the broken lamp came down with him. Unfortunately, it smashed on the floor right next to his head, the broken pieces just missing him.

Kim quickly got off the bed and put her bare foot up against his throat. He was about to take her down again when they were interrupted by the sounds of someone frantically pounding on the front door, as well as the doorbell ringing over and over. Under the loud music still playing, there was just a lot of noise happening at once.

"Kim!" a voice called. "Kim, are you alright?" It was Tanya.

Jared took advantage of the distraction and brought Kim down with him, her body hitting the ground with a hard thud. He had his hands wrapped around her throat again. "Say anything," he whispered, "and I'll fucking kill you."

Tanya remained at the front door, knocking and ringing the doorbell, but nobody answered. It seemed to have gone on forever before it finally ended. The music was the only noise Kim recognized besides her own heartbeat.

Jared finally released his grip on Kim's throat, and he got up, wiping the blood from his mouth. Kim lay motionless on the ground. The shock caught up with her.

"I mean it," he said. Then he left her bedroom and walked right out the front door. Kim couldn't even hear the front door close underneath the music still playing.

She paused the music and went after him at some point, but by the time she got down all the flights of stairs to the first floor, he was gone. She heard the siren of a police car approach the condo complex, but it just passed, dashing away in a flash of blue and red.

Kim went up to the fourth floor, and when she got there, Tanya was waiting for her, leaning against her own door frame.

"Sorry about the music," Kim told her, hoping Tanya couldn't see her markings in the dim light. "I had it up really loud."

"Did you fall?" Tanya asked her. "It sounded like a lot of things were hitting the floor, too."

"Oh, yeah, I was just doing laundry," Kim replied casually. "I dropped the basket. And then I accidentally knocked over some stuff. I'm kind of a klutz." Tanya didn't know that she was actually fairly graceful.

Tanya gave her a wary look. "Okay," she said. "I was just worried."

"I'm fine," Kim said, lying through her teeth. "Have a good night, okay?"

"You, too."

Kim went back into her condo, put on a hoodie, grabbed her keys, and went out to her car. She started it up, but she decided she should talk to Quil before she barged in on his basement in La Push.

She messaged him on the only number she had now, and it turned out to be a real one, probably the phone he had used to upload that Vine of her.

 _You still the plug?_

He replied in a matter of moments, a first for him. _Come thru, Bambi._

* * *

Within half an hour, she was still angry but she decided that demanding where Jared went would get her nowhere right now. She could hardly think and she knew damn well that Quil wouldn't know. Quil didn't know anything but drugs, and that was all she needed now.

Within half an hour, Kim was on her way back to her condo in Forks, her little happy pills in the pocket of her hoodie. She hadn't done this in a while, but she was angry and excited and all over the place. She needed to feel something else besides the imprints of Jared's hands in her throat and the throbbing in her head.

Kim was home in minutes, and she flew up those flights of stairs, the pills in her hands and her head three years backwards in time, sometime in high school when she had been this impulsive and this dumb. She didn't care.

She didn't care, but she did care. She cared enough to the point that when she sat down on her living room couch with the pills in her hand, consideration plagued her mind. She cared enough to think about what she was going to do.

And then she cared enough to flush those pills down the toilet. She didn't care about the effort or the money. She didn't care, but she did care. She just wasn't going to get high alone tonight—not again.

So she finished the laundry that night. She didn't put her music back on, but she finished her and Leah's laundry and folded their clothes nicely because she was a good person.

 _I'm still a good person_ , she told herself.

She got her soup out of the microwave and ate it cold. Then she cleaned up the broken lamp and got rid of all the glass, all the evidence. There was still a speck of Jared's blood on her sheet, though, so she flipped the sheet inside out and put it back on her mattress. And somehow, she willed herself to go to bed. When she laid down, though, it was like Jared had never disintegrated. She still felt heavy.

Kim was awake when Leah came home that night from her date. She faced the wall against her bed, her eyes open and wet. She heard Leah undo her heels and take off her clothes and climb into bed, wordless.

"Don't go to sleep without taking off your makeup," Kim murmured, her voice hoarse. "That's bad."

Leah shifted in her bed. "Why are you still awake, girl?"

"I don't know." Kim paused. "How was the date?"

"He didn't have a condom."

That was the least Kim had ever heard Leah speak in her entire life.

"You _fucking_ didn't," Kim whispered.

"I didn't," Leah assured. " _We_ didn't. I just..." She trailed off, and even though everything on Kim hurt now, it made her hurt even more.

"I gotta sort out some real problems," Leah concluded.

"I believe you," Kim replied.

"I just wish I knew where to start."

"Go to the bathroom and take off your makeup," Kim told her. "That's a start."

Leah sighed and eventually got up. "That's a start," she repeated.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Up next: the (sub)plot thickens._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	62. LXII

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. So we're still on the Kim thing, but we've still got ways to go in regards to the big picture of this story. Here's chapter 62._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXII.**

 _so i fuck with myself more than anybody else_

* * *

Kim woke up angry for the first time the next morning. Pretending that nothing happened had never helped anybody, especially her, but still—it kind of scared her. It would have scared Leah, too, if she had been there.

In the kitchen, Kim found a piece of paper put up against the refrigerator under a magnet, right between Amy Winehouse and Aaliyah's faces.

 _Have to take care of some things at my mom's house_ , the note said. _Call me if you need anything. -Lee_

Kim removed the note and threw it away. Then she began to make some coffee, but she knew it wouldn't make her feel entirely better. She decided that skipping her classes would do the trick. That decision got her to relax a little bit.

She checked her cell phone to find exactly zero notifications, so she got desperate and checked Quil's account on Vine. The video of her and Bella had seventeen thousand loops now, and Quil had gained hundreds of more followers.

Kim scrolled down, and Jared's comments had been drowned out by the multitudes of other comments. People tagged other people in it, and there seemed to be a war going on between #teamthickwhitegirl and #teamlatina. Kim spent a moment trying to figure out who was the Latina in the Vine until she realized that her relative ethnic ambiguity had won out yet again.

Over a cup of coffee, Kim unfollowed Quil on Vine and prayed that his lameness would drown out all the noise and cause his current followers to lose interest. The muteness would help.

She finally set her phone down, and the feeling of loneliness swept over her, but then it felt like contentedness. It didn't hurt. Ultimately, Kim had her own back, and it wasn't daunting. She didn't need much else besides herself. She fucked with herself more than anybody else, and that was okay.

It was all love.

* * *

Not much later, Kim decided to pay Quil a visit. After thinking about it, she wasn't angry that he had recorded a video of her accidentally outing herself, and she wasn't even angry that Jared knew anymore. She was just furious that she hadn't _killed_ Jared last night for breaking into her condo and attacking her. Any normal person would be furious.

That morning, she decided to buy a gun. She knew that Quil had to have some sort of plug.

So she ventured out to La Push. She went there more often these days, but it still had a sense of alienness to her. A sense that the reservation wasn't hers and could never be hers. She felt like a fraud and since she was only a quarter Quileute, she just might be.

When Kim approached Quil's front door, she stopped dead in her tracks and thought she had the wrong house. Metal bars now covered his front door and all the windows. The reservation wasn't as inherently dangerous to live on as it was depressing, but then again, what did she know? Nothing.

She banged her fists on the front door, persistent. She never got an answer. Not even Quil's mom was home, and she was _always_ home. Kim knew he was home, though; Quil had nowhere else to be.

When she didn't get a response, Kim called the cell phone number she had reached Quil with just last night in order to obtain Molly, but it was now disconnected, which she should have expected. If Quil had as many brains as he had burner phones, then he'd be in good hands.

She couldn't just leave, though—Quil's help could mean everything to her. She walked around the house, to the basement door, which was also covered in metal bars. He had to be doing something bigger than weed, and it had to be serious. It just didn't make sense, though. He had been okay for the last couple months, since she'd checked on him in August, cracked out to the max. He'd been fine since then. Quil had been sober at Jacob's get-together just the other day, and even though she had met him halfway last night for her fix, he had seemed okay.

If anybody knew Quil, it was Kim, and the guy was an open book. He wore his heart and his mind and his everything out on his sleeve for the world to see, and if the world was beating him up again, everyone would see the bruises, too.

She pounded her fist against the door. "Open up, open up, open up," she mumbled.

Quil opened the wooden door and brought the metal one forward. Wearing boxers and a t-shirt in the middle of a weekday, he had absolutely nothing to do. He looked like a bum, but he looked sober and clean—he looked normal.

"You come here alone?" Quil asked, glancing cautiously around his backyard.

"Duh," Kim replied. "Quit playing."

She stepped inside his basement and immediately wanted to leave. She would have if her circumstances weren't so urgent. The place smelled of stale beer, weed, and straight fire.

Kim didn't take a seat; she wouldn't be here for long, so she just leaned against the door. Quil didn't attempt to clean up a little bit. Who did he have to impress? Claire was gone, he was too goofy to have much game, and this was his home, after all.

"Whatcha need, Bambi?" he asked. "'Cause if you need another high, you really should have called first."

She didn't beat around the bush. "I need to know how much I can buy a handgun off you for," she said bluntly.

"Is someone trying to fuck with you?" he asked warily. He cared, even a little—even if he had to.

"Not now," Kim replied, "but I have a feeling that's gonna be happening really, really soon."

"Well, what kinda gun you thinkin' about?"

Kim was precise as if she'd rehearsed her lines over and over (which she certainly had on the ride here). "Small," she specified, "but can put a man down."

Quil thought for a moment and then exhaled long and slow. "I'm sorry, Bambi," he told her, "but guns aren't my thing."

"Whose thing _is_ guns, then? You have to know somebody."

"I know a guy, but he doesn't really like to fuck with the rez. Finds it kinda sketchy."

"Where's he live, then?"

"The other side of Forks," he said. "Not out in the sticks, where you used to live, but in the woods. It's hella low-key, and if you get fucked up out there, no one's gonna find you, but that's where he does most of his business."

"I'll do everything I have to," Kim said. "What's his name?"

"Edmond. Edmond, uh..." Quil shut his eyes, trying to remember. "Hale. Edmond Hale, or Jasper Cullen. Sometimes he goes by Jasper Cullen."

 _Peculiar name._ "Okay," Kim said. "You got a phone number for him?"

"Yeah, yeah," Quil said, walking across the room to his desk to pick up his cell phone. "I'll call him first, though, so he knows you're coming."

"Thanks."

"Yeah, yeah." He scrolled through the contacts in his phone and then called the guy. "Hey, Jasper, it's Quil. Don't freak out, but I've got someone who needs a handgun… No, yeah, she's _decent…_ Yeah, she's a fine little piece with dark, curly hair. She's about five foot four and the prettiest damn thing you've ever seen. You can't miss her…" He was looking at Kim the entire time he spoke on the phone. "No, all she needs is a fuckin' pistol, man. She'll be coming up on you in about ten minutes. I'm real close to her, so treat her right and don't pull any shit, okay? Thanks, man." Then he hung up.

"It's not a blind date," Kim said. "You didn't have to say all that."

"He just wanted to know what you look like so he knows what to expect," Quil assured her. "And, besides, it's not like it's not true."

"How sweet of you," she said sarcastically. He didn't catch on.

"If I ask you something," he began, "would you try not to get mad?"

"Go ahead."

"If you weren't gay, would you have given me a chance?"

She realized that the term _bisexual_ wasn't going to work on everyone, so she just sighed. "I'm not really looking for anyone right now, Quil."

"That doesn't answer the question, Bambi."

"You're one of my closest friends," she told him, "and even though you're a fuckass for making that Vine of me, that's not gonna change."

He shrugged. "I guess that's cool," he said. "I can live in the friend zone."

She didn't want to be overtly rude and tell him to get used to it, so she just nodded. "Can I have Jasper's number?" she asked.

"Yeah, for sure," he replied, and then he turned back to the desk. He picked up a napkin and an old pen, and after scratching the corner of the napkin forever, he finally got some ink out of it and etched in some digits.

He walked the napkin over to her. "Here," he said.

"And this number isn't going to mysteriously disconnect?" Kim asked.

"Nah," Quil said. "It's real. He only deals with guns."

"How much do you think this will cost?" she wondered.

"I gave him a referral, so hopefully, it'll be discounted. I'm thinking a hundred bucks."

"Okay, cool. Thanks a lot, Quil."

"No problem, Bambi."

She turned around to leave, but then he called her name. He almost never called her anything but Bambi, so she knew he was serious.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Be careful," he told her. "Life round here ain't as nice as it used to be."

* * *

Kim called Jasper as soon as she got to her car, and they agreed to meet out towards the woods after she visited the ATM. He told her what kind of car he would be driving, and they met on the side of the empty road next to a giant Douglas fir.

Jasper was a lanky, awkward kind of guy, and the trench coat he wore didn't make him look any less sketchy. He didn't seem to be much older than Kim, either. He was a pale white guy with copper hair and green eyes, and he bore a strange resemblance to somebody she thought she'd met before, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

"So I take it you're Kim from the phone," he said. "Q described you as really pretty and I'd have to say that's accurate."

"That's me, I guess," she replied. "And you're Jasper?"

"Call me J," he said.

"Okay, then, J."

"You needed something small, right? Like a pistol?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"I've got a 22 magnum that should be able to buy you time if you need it in a situation. I normally sell them for about a hundred, but you're cute so I guess you deserve a discount, right?" He gave a creepy smile but she just played along, smiling uncomfortably. "I'll need eighty," he told her.

She dug into the pocket of her jeans and took out four twenty dollar bills. She handed them to him, and he carefully removed the gun from his jacket while tucking in the money in one swift motion.

"It's loaded and ready to go," he told her. "Hopefully, you know what to do with it."

She nodded, carefully taking the pistol. It was cold in her hands and she felt that she might shoot herself in the foot just by thinking about how little she knew about guns.

"Thanks, J," she said, awkwardly trying to keep the weapon concealed at her side.

"No problem, sweetie," he said. "Call me anytime."

She nodded and then returned to her car. _I shouldn't have to,_ she thought.

* * *

On the way home, Kim came up with her plan. It wasn't complicated or even that well thought-out. Kim would just have to be ready if Jared were to ever return. The last thing he'd told her was that if she said anything, he would kill her. Prior to last night, she hadn't taken him seriously.

Now there was no room to fuck around.

Despite the fact that Jared had attacked her, Kim really didn't want to shoot him. She didn't want to shoot anybody. And most importantly, she didn't want to end up firing a gun she didn't know how to use and shoot herself by accident. That would be embarrassing—and messy.

She had work later, and she ought to exercise herself, but Kim found herself on YouTube for hours. She had locked up her gun in the glove compartment of her car, but she couldn't help but watch videos upon videos regarding handguns. Obviously, practicing in real time would be more effective than just watching videos on the Internet, but she couldn't bring herself to retrieve the weapon. She was already scared. After multiple videos, the only thing she knew how to do for sure was remove bullets.

Then she had her plan: she would keep the gun with her in case Jared returned, but it would be empty. Jared was plenty of things like rude, homophobic, crazy, and kind of ugly, but he for sure wasn't smart. He wouldn't stand a chance against what he thought was a bullet.

Kim wasn't religious, but she prayed to God that Jared was as dumb as she thought he was.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** The next chapter will feature some action, and then we'll return to our scheduled Leah/Bella/Jacob/Paul program in the chapter following._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	63. LXIII

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. Today (or tonight, depending on where you are) the Kim thing comes to a resolution. Here's chapter 63._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXIII.**

 _anyone can start again_  
 _not through love, but through revenge_  
 _through the fire, we're born again_  
 _peace by vengeance brings the end_

* * *

The next morning, neither Kim nor Leah had classes. Kim hadn't been able to sleep, so she'd woken up Leah and offered to drive to breakfast.

When the sky was still pitch black, they sat down at the diner out in the middle of nowhere (technically Port Angeles), the heart of the badlands. The diner where Embry worked, the diner that the girls had busted up, the diner that felt home.

Leah thanked the waitress for pouring their coffee, and then she looked across the booth at Kim. "This is so nice of you," she said.

"I'm super hungry," Kim replied. "I guess it's because I couldn't sleep." That part was true; she had stayed up coming up with a newer, better plan to end the Jared situation. She felt like a villain, but she knew that the moment she began to feel somewhat safe, he'd just come back. She would have to make her move before he even thought about his next one.

"Can't imagine why," Leah said. "You skipped school yesterday."

"How'd you know about that?"

"It's not that hard to notice when you're gone." Her voice was blunt. "So what gives?"

Then Kim let it out all on the table. She told Leah about Jared breaking into their condo, about Jared attacking and threatening her, about the fact that she was an Internet meme at the hands of Quil, about the gun—all of it.

Then she told Leah about the new plan—the better plan.

Leah just stared at her with wide, tired eyes and raised eyebrows. "Damn, Kim," she breathed.

Kim bit her lip. "I sound crazy, don't I?"

"No," Leah said gently. "You sound like you're about to finally fuck _all_ his shit up." Then she smiled devilishly. "I want in."

"Leah, I—"

"This is gonna be _so_ good. Maybe we can get the ski masks and shit again and then—"

"Leah," Kim said urgently. "I need to do this _by_ myself and _for_ myself. If you get involved, things will get more complicated. And really, it's my problem. I can't help the fact that I like women and have a psycho for an ex."

Leah was silent, and then she nodded. "You're right," she agreed. "Are you sure you're gonna be okay?"

"You don't need to protect me or anything," Kim assured her. "I'll be okay."

"I don't have a damn choice," Leah said. "I _have_ to protect you. You're my best friend and if anyone is fucking with you, then they're fucking with me."

Kim gave her a sad smile. "I'll be okay," she repeated. "And likewise—if anyone has an issue with you, they have an issue with me, too."

"Glad to know we're on the same page. But I've gotta ask—why didn't you just call the police when Jared broke into our place?"

"You know this better than anyone, Leah," Kim replied. "When has the Forks Police Department _ever_ cared about native girls?"

Leah was silent.

"And besides," Kim went on. "He's not gonna hurt me and get away with it. I'll hit him back twice as hard, and that's a promise."

"I'm so damn proud of you, you know that?"

Kim grinned. "It's about time."

* * *

Kim approached the cabin later that evening. The cabin was between First Beach and the woods, and it was way deep. She waited for Leah to pick up her phone. She parked the car a short walk away, at the edge of the parking lot, and stared out at the blue waves of the Pacific Ocean. She was surprised that it hadn't completely frozen over like everything else.

The phone call went to voicemail (Kim decided Leah was probably on break at Floriano's), and she could feel herself shaking, except she wasn't sure if it was from the cold.

"Hey, Lee," she said. "I'm going in. He's supposed to meet me in a couple minutes. If it all goes well, I'll meet you at Floriano's when you get off work. If not..." She trailed off. "It doesn't matter. I'll see you. Love you."

She hung up, grabbed the handgun from the glove compartment, and braced herself for the cold as she got out of the car.

Despite owning a decent amount of lingerie, the sexiest thing Kim had ever worn prior to now was a sports bra. Clad in a matching black bra and panty set along with a silver silk robe, she felt like super Kim—über Kim. The gun in her right hand made the look. She was freezing, but she had never been scorching with more power or control. She felt fake—fake sexy with a gun that wasn't even loaded—but she felt damn good about it.

She entered the abandoned cabin through the back door. Even though she knew her ensemble was a little theatrical, she knew it would do Jared in. She'd left home last night to clear her head, and when she'd decided to take a walk, she had somehow found this cabin.

The cabin was a peculiar little place. It used to be a vacation home, but nobody vacationed in La Push, and nobody sure as shit vacationed in La Push in February. It was a shame, honestly—this was the honeymoon suite, accommodated with red linens on the king-sized bed and a year-old box of chocolates on the bedside table. In any normal situation, it would be romantic.

It was a good thing this wasn't a normal situation.

Kim took off her shoes, set her bag aside, and placed the gun understand the bed, the handle sticking out by a centimeter. Then she tucked the digital voice recorder underneath the mattress with the buttons poking out just enough. She was all set.

Her heart raced when she heard a car screech through the gravel of the parking lot. Immediately, every sort of thought ran through her head except for the idea of failure. She wouldn't fail. It merely wasn't an option.

There was a knock on the door, and Kim swung it open to find Jared. She'd seen enough of him in the past few days than she would want to see in a lifetime, but she got over it and quickly brought her lips to his. She pulled him through the door, and he slammed it shut.

He broke away for a moment. "You look really good, babe," he said.

"I just wanted to say sorry," she replied, lying through her teeth. "Sorry for acting like that the other day."

He had a smug grin on his face. "I was waiting for an apology." Then he greedily smacked her ass and then pushed her back onto the bed. He followed, and his weight on top of her was familiar and scary.

As he kissed her like he really loved her, panic ran through her mind. Would she be able to pull this off? Plenty of theories seemed successful but were proven wrong in practice. She didn't want this to be just an idea or a concept.

She wanted this to be the end.

While he was busy feeling her up, she brought her hand to the side of the mattress and clicked the _record_ button on the digital voice recorder.

"Stop," she whispered. "Please."

His breath was hot and his hands were rough. "What was that, babe?"

"Stop," she said louder. "Stop."

"You said you wanted this," he told her.

"No, I didn't," she replied. "Please… just stop."

"Shut the fuck up and take it," he said, kissing at the corner of her mouth and holding her at the throat.

She brought her fist up to sock him in the nose with an audible _crunch_. "Fucking stop!" she exclaimed.

"Shit, what the _fuck_ is wrong with you?" he asked, pulling away as he held his bleeding nose with his hands.

"I said stop," she said, her voice clear.

"You weren't saying that just now," he said, and then he lunged at her quickly. She was faster. She rolled over and watched him fall face-down on the bed, and then she kicked him hard in the side.

He got up as she was scrambling away and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her back to him. "You crazy bitch," he muttered. "I should have killed you last time."

She spat in his face. "Asshole," she said.

With his grip still in her hair, he smacked her across the face and she slipped on the wooden floor. He lost his balance for a moment, too, and she scrambled along the floor, reaching for the gun underneath the bed. She quickly turned and then kicked him in the balls, waiting for him to back up a little before she got the gun.

"Jesus _Christ_ ," he exclaimed, holding his balls. "Crazy bitch."

Then she pointed the gun straight at him, quickly getting back to her feet. "Stay back," she told him.

"Kim, what the fuck?"

" _Stay back_ ," she repeated, silently praying to whatever God there was that Jared wouldn't call her bluff.

"Where'd you even _get_ that?" he asked, absolutely bewildered.

"A good friend," she said. "Now back the hell up."

"That's not real," he said. "There's no fuckin' way."

"Want me to prove it?" she asked. "Because I could fuck your shit up right now." She took two steps closer to him.

He backed up towards the door, actually frightened. "Kim," he said slowly. "You don't have to do this."

" _You_ didn't have to break into my condo and attack me," she retorted. "You could have just left me alone all these years, but you didn't. What the hell is your problem?"

"I just wanted to know what made you become a dyke!" Jared yelled. "You pulled this shit out of nowhere, and it's embarrassing. It's a fuckin' embarrassment, Kim."

She closed the space between them and punched him hard in the shoulder with the gun.

"Easy!" he hollered. "You're about to do something really stupid."

"Fuck you," she said. "We're not an item anymore, Jared. This isn't high school, and you may be the same person you were two years ago, but I'm not."

"Congratulations," he replied, his nose still bleeding. "That doesn't make you any less of an embarrassment."

She brought the gun up to his face and hit him with it. "Get _over_ yourself," she told him.

"Or what?" he challenged. "You'll have Daddy sue me?"

"No," she said. "I'll just fucking kill you." Then she socked him with the gun again, and this time, it caught him way off guard. He stumbled away and ended up on the floor.

She pointed the gun down at him. "I was the best thing that ever happened to you," she told him, "and suddenly _I'm_ an embarrassment?"

He had to be seeing stars. He didn't reply.

"You play football for U-Dub," she continued. "You're a popular guy like you've always been. That has nothing to do with me, yet somehow, what I do or who I'm with is a reflection of you and all your achievements."

She grabbed the digital voice recorder from the mattress and held it up. Jared looked up at the red flashing light, and she saw unadulterated fear run through his entire body. She clicked the _stop_ button.

"What the fuck are you so afraid of?" she asked him, her voice soft and sweet.

She lowered the gun and the recorder. Jared just stared up at her with wide eyes and blood all over his face as she turned and went to her bag. She removed her robe, exposing her back to him. She took out a pair of jeans from her bag and brought them up over her lace panties.

"You have two options," she told him as she got dressed. "First, you can be involved in a scandal. It'll be messy. University of Washington quarterback harasses and assaults ex-girlfriend, fueled by homophobia and blatant bigotry. Oh, and you're not white, so you can't get away with it. At least, not easily. Or, as your other option, you can skip town. Stay out of my life. Don't call me or text me ever again. Delete every trace of me from your phone. Forget my name. Do all that, and you can finish up your master's and maybe even get drafted to the Seahawks without anything held against you."

She finished lacing up her boots, and then she zipped up her windbreaker. Then she closed the space between them and squatted down to his level.

"So what do you say?" she asked him.

"I say you're fucking crazy," he replied, "but we had a good ride." He began to slowly get up, and then he made his way to the door.

"Goodbye, Jared," she said, opening the door so he could exit the honeymoon suite. The cold air blew in. "Take care of your nose."

"Bye, Kim," he replied. "You just take care."

* * *

Leah found Kim sitting alone in a booth at Floriano's just a short while later, sipping from a glass of water and scanning her eyes across the menu.

"By the looks of it," Leah said, "you're gonna need something a lot stronger than water."

Kim looked up, and she was so happy to see Leah that tears were in her eyes.

"Oh my God, are you okay?" Leah asked.

"I'm great," Kim replied. "I'm exhausted, but I'm great. Sit down, sit down."

Leah sat down across from her at the booth. "How'd it go?"

"Well, I made it. He's coming back, either."

"How do you know?"

Kim gave Leah a sly smile. "I fucked _all_ his shit up."

Leah just laughed. "Good. You ready to go?"

"I was actually just gonna eat something while waiting for you to get off work," Kim replied.

"Oh, I'm off." Leah stood up and untied her apron. "Well, in ten minutes, but it's whatever. Let's get outta here."

Leah went in the back for a moment and then returned. She linked arms with Kim, and then they left the restaurant.

They stood in the tiny space between their cars, and Leah asked, "Where do you wanna go?"

"Let's go eat," Kim suggested. "We can stay in Port Angeles. Oh, and I have to do one more thing."

"And what would that be?"

Kim just smiled, and minutes later, she was still smiling as she entered the one tattoo parlor in town. It was the same place that she had gotten her first tattoo, just after graduation. Back then, she had really thought she was done with Jared. She had been mistaken, and getting rid of him hadn't been easy, but she was overflowing with joy now.

Later that evening, Kim had gotten her third tattoo ever. In tiny, cursive letters just on the outside of her hand and leading up to her pinkie finger, she had gotten three words permanently attached to her, and she loved them with her entire being.

 _Trust no one._

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _Next chapter, we'll return to the Leah, Bella, Jacob, and Paul program._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	64. LXIV

**_A/N:_** _I don't own Twilight. I know it's been a while, but here is chapter 64. Fiiiiinally. I've been busy irl with school stuff, and I should only get busier, which kills me because of this story, but life happens. So the last time we met, Kim finally got rid of Jared. We're kind of on a new arc now. I just don't know what to call it. The content is gonna be pretty heavy on the four main characters from here on out._

 _Anyway, here is chapter 64 of Static. It's one of the longer ones. It features Leah, Jacob, Bella, and Paul - oh, and a whole lot of feelings, too._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXIV.**

 _baby, you don't wanna leave_  
 _you'd be sorry, 'cause honestly_  
 _i can make you feel better, any day_

* * *

A couple nights later, Leah sat on the couch in her condo. Kim was out, so she had borrowed her laptop and was now watching makeup tutorials on YouTube. It was therapeutic. These girls—and some guys, too, of course—recorded themselves putting on makeup for free, just to showcase their passion and hopefully spark some inspiration in others. Leah didn't have any of the products that these artists had, so she couldn't really be an active viewer, but it was still beautiful to watch. It was fucking gorgeous.

Her flip phone—the prepaid one with minutes—vibrated on the coffee table next to the laptop. She paused the YouTube video and answered the call.

It was Jacob. She pretended like she didn't have caller ID.

"Hello?" she asked.

"Hey, it's Jake."

She hadn't talked to him since the other night when she'd sabotaged their first real date. Why would he want anything to do with her after all that? "Hey," she replied.

"Whatcha up to?"

"I'm sitting at home, watching _Selena_ ," she lied.

"All you ever do is sit at home and watch _Selena_ ," he said. "On VHS."

"Uh, get your facts straight before you come at me like that," she said. "I'm watching it on DVD." In reality, she hadn't even opened the DVD that Bella had given her. Despite the fact that it wasn't Pandora's box, as Bella had said, Leah still treated it like it was.

"So I assume you gave your mom her VCR back?"

Leah grimaced when she realized she still had the VCR. Sue hadn't called or anything, but nothing really got past her. She knew.

Leah decided she couldn't lie anymore. "No," she said quietly.

Jacob just chuckled. "Bring the VCR and yourself downstairs," he told her. "I'm right outside."

"Stalker, much?" Leah asked jokingly. "Tell me, Jake, what am I wearing?"

"You're wearing nothing," he replied slowly, "but an NSYNC onesie. Since all you like is 90s shit, I mean."

Leah got up and began to walk to her bedroom, undoing the tie on her sweatpants. She held the cell phone between her shoulder and her ear. "You're not a good stalker," she told him. "Like any self-respecting human being, I don't fuck with NSYNC."

"Backstreet Boys, then?"

"Nobody fucks with the Backstreet Boys _._ I'm wearing nothing but a Spice Girls onesie."

She removed her sweatpants and found a pair of jeans on the ground. She pulled them on. Then she walked to the bathroom in search of her sandals. She would wear them over her fuzzy socks, and she'd probably freeze, but it was a good look.

"The Spice Girls aren't a boy band," Jacob said. "They don't count."

"The Spice Girls are better than any boy band that ever was," Leah replied, "or ever will be. For one thing, you can tell them apart. There wasn't just, like, one lead, and they don't all look the same. You have Scary Spice, Baby Spice, Posh Spice, Ginger Spice, and Sporty Spice. In Backstreet, you've got… Justin Timberlake."

"He was in NSYNC, not Backstreet," Jacob corrected her. "Even _I_ know that."

"Well, like I said, I don't fuck with NSYNC." Leah brought her hair down from her uncontrollable bun and decided not to change sweatshirts or put on a bra. She exited the bathroom, put on her shoes, and looked for her wallet.

"Why do you still live in the 90s?" Jacob wondered.

"I don't, but the 90s were cool. Everybody knows that."

"Yeah, I guess spending a lot of the time not knowing how to read was pretty cool."

"I had a damn good time, but you wouldn't know about all that—it was a little before your time."

"You were born less than two months before me."

"Isn't that crazy to think about?" she asked him. "Like, Kim was born less than a month after me, and you were a month after her. Everybody's mom was pregnant all at once."

"Jesus Christ. The 90s were something else. So, Leah, are you gonna keep wasting your _and_ my cell phone minutes, or are you gonna come outside?"

"Wait, so you actually wanna see me?" she asked, confused.

"'Course I do."

"Even after the other night?"

"Quit asking questions and meet me," he said.

She ended the call with a _clat_ and grabbed her mom's VCR from the living room. Then she flew down the stairs like a bullet.

When she entered Jacob's Rabbit after putting the VCR in the backseat, she immediately felt so awful and so regretful about what had happened. "God, I am so sorry," she told him. "I know you're probably just trying to be nice, but if you don't wanna hang out with me after what happened the other night, that's okay."

"Leah," Jacob began slowly, "you're fucking crazy."

"Well, _yeah_ , I'm fucking crazy," she agreed, "but I don't wanna feel that way anymore. I just… I got some real issues to sort out."

"We all do," he said. "It's not that deep."

"I think I'm especially fucked up about sex," she went on. "I mean, I didn't _plan_ on trying to fuck you the other night. It just always seems to be that way. When I hung out with Paul for the first time in _years,_ back on, like, senior Prom night, we had sex. And then just a little while ago, during my first day at an internship that I completely sabotaged, I had sex with my boss. I didn't mean to try to have sex with you on our first date. I didn't. I just… I thought I had to because I got used to it. I'm sorry, Jake. Really. I don't like saying sorry to anyone, but I am."

 _There I go_ , she thought. _Making it all deep again._

"So do you want to get pizza or burgers?" Jacob asked easily.

Leah blinked. "Burgers," she replied.

He backed out of the parking lot and began to drive into town. His eyes were glued to the road and the minimal lights.

"Good job dismissing my confession," Leah said halfheartedly. "That's the last time I'll ever pour my feelings out to you and not worry about the mess."

"Lee, I kind of assumed you were weird about sex when you were obviously upset about the fact that I didn't carry a condom on the first date," he replied. "That's okay, though."

"But is it?" she asked. "Because that's pretty fucking weird to me."

"Yeah, it's weird. It's actually weird as hell—"

"Careful, now," she warned. "I may not have feelings, but I'm sensitive."

"But," he continued, "it's just an issue we've gotta sort out. We've all got real issues, and we've all gotta get through them."

"You make it sound so simple. You make it sound like you wouldn't run off the second shit hits the fan."

Then he turned to her. The town's one stoplight illuminated the far side of his face. "I'm not Paul," he told her. "I don't go running off the second things get a little tough. I'll stay, you'll trust me, and we'll work it out. Easy as that."

She tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips, trying so hard to hide the smile forming underneath her air of _too cool for this shit._ Jacob was right; he wasn't Paul. He wasn't anything like him. But Leah still had a streak of mean that wasn't her own. She hoped that she would eventually get over it before it ruined everything.

* * *

The little burger joint in Forks was relatively busy that night; it seemed like the entire population of the badlands was in attendance. Jacob and Leah had to wait half an hour before getting a booth near the back.

Jacob faced the back of the restaurant, and Leah faced the front. She didn't mean to be rude and look past him, but two other guests of the restaurant made her take a double take even though she shouldn't have been so surprised.

Being seated in the booth right behind Jacob were Bella and Paul. Paul's back was to Jacob's back, and the girls were staring right at each other. Leah didn't know whether or not to be nice, so Bella smiled first. Her makeup was done and her hair fell in waves—she actually looked really pretty. Happy, too.

Leah looked back to Jacob, whose eyes were down on the menu. "Our exes are right behind you," she told him.

His eyes didn't leave the menu. "Oh, sweet."

"They're way more dressed up than we are."

Jacob, clad in an old sweatshirt and jeans, shrugged. "We're at a burger joint. You're wearing socks and sandals."

"Bella looks really good," Leah said. "Like, she's glowing and shit. The bags under her eyes are gone and I know she's not wearing any makeup."

"Ask if she's pregnant."

"You first."

Leah scanned her own menu and settled for the same thing she always got when she came here. The server approached their table with glasses of water and then took their orders. When the server left, Leah peered over at Bella and Paul again. They were holding hands across the table, and they were leaned in close.

Paul had never even offered Leah to hold his hand in public. He hadn't been "about that lovey-dovey bullshit" at all.

So what changed?

"Hey, you okay?" Jacob asked. "Your face looks all tense."

Leah blinked and looked back at Jacob. "I'm really not in the mood for burgers," she said. "Wanna get outta here?"

"We already ordered," he reminded her. "That's a dine and dash."

"Could you maybe _not_ be so basic for once?" she asked impatiently. "Besides, we're not eating it and we ordered, like, the simplest things on the menu. Someone else will want it."

"I don't think that's how—"

"Jake," she said sternly, her eyes boring into his.

"Okay, let's go."

They got up and made a run for it. Leah didn't look back at Bella and Paul once.

* * *

"What was _that_ all about?" Jacob asked as they got back into his car. He began to drive to Sue's house so they could finally drop off the VCR. "Was it 'cause you saw Bella and Paul? 'Forks is a really small town, you know."

"Jake, it's so much bigger than that."

"Then what is it?"

"Okay, well, first, are you mad?"

Jacob sighed. "No," he admitted. "Just hungry."

"We can eat somewhere else."

"No, I wanna know what the problem is."

"Jake, me and Paul didn't exactly end on good terms. He just walked out without even explaining himself. And I know for damn sure that Bella left you cold, too."

"Yeah, but I'm over it. Like you said, they're both weird so they're good for each other."

"I know," Leah said, "but what had me going crazy back there was the fact that he was holding her hand and shit."

"So they're together. I think we both saw that coming. What's the issue?"

"Paul never held my fucking hand. He was too cool to even act like we were together when we were with other people."

Jacob held her hand. "Fixed," he said.

She just looked down at their hands. "Not everything is a quick fix. You can't treat everything like it's a simple issue."

" _Leeee-ah_ ," he said, drawing her name out. "It really _is_ that simple, though. The problem is that Paul was a dick who wouldn't hold your hand. The solution is that _I'm_ holding your hand."

"But—"

"But what?"

It had never really occurred to her how straightforward Jacob was. Nobody had ever been that clear with her or cared this much about what she wanted or how she felt. She was so used to being the abrasive one, the one who did all the talking and prompting, that to actually have someone hold up their end of the relationship was miraculous.

Paul had never been this conscious, and if he was now, then it was Bella who had changed him.

Had Leah not been enough?

Leah wanted to be honest with Jacob and talk about her current frustrations with Paul, but he was the wrong person to discuss this with. She knew Jake would listen and try to help, but it wasn't that deep. It couldn't be—Leah was just fond of over-thinking every aspect of her life.

The issue wasn't that important, and even though Jacob _would_ listen, it didn't mean that he would want to. He was patient, but she didn't want to test it. Their relationship, as equitable as it was despite being brand-new (somewhat), still needed time to grow.

Maybe _Leah_ needed time to grow. She needed to realize that she was finally equal.

"What's on your mind, honey?" he asked her.

And suddenly, her head was at ease. At least, for the time being. His goodness prevailed like it always did, and she couldn't be proud enough to deny it.

"I guess I need you around," she admitted. "You make me feel better."

He brought her hand up and kissed it, his eyes still on the road. "Any time," he told her.

* * *

After sneaking the VCR back into her mother's house and attaching a Post-It note to it that said _Sorry_ , Leah and Jacob picked up a pizza and headed back to her condo. Kim still wasn't home; it made Leah feel a lot better about barging in so late.

"Sorry it's not burgers," Leah told Jacob as she turned on the light switch to the living room, and then the kitchen. She set the pizza box down on the stove and opened the cabinet to look for plates.

"I don't even care," Jacob replied. "I'm starving."

"Good."

Leah set the plates next to the box and leaned back against the oven door. She wrapped her arms around his torso and brought him in close.

She didn't know how to feel—about him, about them, about the quality of their relationship—but she felt good.

"What's this all for?" he asked quietly, a slight smile on his face.

She smiled back. "Thanks for driving everywhere," she said. "And all the time."

He shrugged. "I like driving."

She tilted her head to the side again and pursed her lips again. Classic. And even though he'd seen this look a couple of times now, with the tired circles under her eyes and all, he was fine with being used to it. He didn't give up easily, and he wasn't afraid of sticking around. Jacob liked Leah full-time, which was rare because part-time love thrived around here. It was all they really knew.

Jacob wanted to know a little more than that.

He brought his lips to hers. He moved softly, slowly. It was like the kiss at the New Years' party except neither of them had to think about the eight other people they knew or anything at all.

He broke away for a moment, and she looked up at him, confused. Then he hoisted her up onto the counter so they could be more level with each other. More equal. She pulled him in between her thighs and kept her wrists behind his neck.

She pressed herself closer to him, and she found herself nearly slipping off the counter.

"Shit," she muttered. "Wait."

He paused. "Yeah?"

"Couch."

He helped her off the counter and stumbled back as she guided him to the couch without having to break away from him.

"Lee," he breathed.

"Mm-hm?"

"Why do you have pictures of dead singers on your refrigerator?"

She giggled. "I'll tell you about it later. Keep moving."

They ended up on the couch, where Leah broke away to undo the button of her jeans and roll them down, revealing her thick, brown thighs. Those thighs put Jacob in a certain place. He quickly took off his sweatshirt and t-shirt and tossed them to the ground. He brought Leah in close again, and she straddled him while simultaneously grinding against him.

He slipped his hands up her sweatshirt and felt that there was nothing underneath. He cupped her breasts and she kissed him harder, gently tugging on his bottom lip with her teeth.

"You know I'm weird about sex," she murmured. "What changed?"

"I have a condom this time," he replied.

She paused, just looking at him. "Jake," she said.

"Mm-hm?"

"You're just as weird as me." Then she returned to kissing him, and he shifted so she was on her back on the couch. He soon had her naked under him, and he was on his way.

He was in his boxers when she rolled over so she could straddle him again, and she slowly rocked against him as he hungrily moved his mouth from her breasts to her throat and everything in between.

She reached down to remove his boxers and finally touch him. Suddenly, she paused and leaned back. "Jacob," she said, looking at their bottom halves.

He looked up at her. "Yeah?"

Her voice was blunt. "You are not gonna put that inside of me."

"Put what?"

Her eyes slightly widened. " _That_."

"What, you a virgin?" he challenged.

She took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. "Are _you_?"

"I mean, we can still do other things," he suggested.

"Oh, yeah, definitely," she agreed. "Just not… _that_."

He placed his hand on hers, rubbing his thumb against the inside of her wrist. "Glad we're on the same page."

She rolled her eyes again and leaned forward to kiss him. "Mm-hmm, Jake."

* * *

After consuming cold pizza and talking for hours, Leah walked Jacob to the front door of the condo. He was redressed, and she wore just a t-shirt and clean underwear. All she knew was that it was late (or early) and that she didn't want to say goodbye, but he had school later and she had work.

"I'd have you spend the night," she said to him, "but I don't have any breakfast food besides coffee."

"It's cool. I'll come through for lunch."

"Nah, don't do all that," she told him. " _I'll_ come through."

He didn't even have to try to convince himself that she would live up to her promise. He smiled and turned away. She stuck out her arm and grabbed the sleeve of his sweatshirt. He turned back to her.

She bit her lip. "Next time," she said.

He nodded. "Next time."

* * *

Leah woke up much, much later to the smell of coffee, and she decided that Kim must have had a long night of her own. It was eleven thirty in the morning and she was just getting started with her day.

Leah found Kim sitting down at the table with a cup of coffee. Kim's hair was up in a messy bun, and she looked exhausted.

"Where've _you_ been, sis?" Leah asked, sitting down across from her, starting to pour herself a cup.

"I've been around La Push," Kim replied. "Sorry for not saying anything, I just got caught up with Emily."

"It's fine," Leah said. "It's probably a good thing that you weren't around last night. I wouldn't have wanted to kick you out."

Kim had a sip from her cup. "So you guys smashed?"

"I kinda wanted to be able to walk today," Leah replied, "so not exactly. But yeah, we had a good time."

"Aww, I'm happy for you, Lee."

"Love you, Kim."

"Love you, too. So I guess Jake's not that damaged after all?"

"Actually," Leah said slowly. "I don't think he's the damaged one. You see, I'm not fixing him like I thought I would have to. _He's_ self-sufficient. _He_ knows what he's doing. I think Jacob is fixing me."

"And are you okay with that?"

Leah nodded. "Yeah," she said. "I really am."

* * *

The following afternoon, Paul helped Bella put on her motorcycle helmet as they stood in the driveway of his house in La Push.

"So you're telling me," he began, "that you've _never_ ridden a motorcycle before?"

"Charlie found out before I could even start," she explained, her voice muffled by the helmet. "And I told you I like to live fast, but not like that."

"Not like what?" he asked.

"Not like I wanna die riding on a motorcycle all the way to fuckin' _Renton_."

"Chill, baby girl. Renton ain't that far."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're full of an alarming amount of shit?" Bella asked.

Paul grinned. "But you love it, anyway."

She tugged the helmet off and fixed her hair. "I do," she replied, "but we're not taking a motorcycle to Renton. I'd rather drive my truck than do that."

"Okay, well, _I'm_ driving, then," he said. "'Cause your truck will actually kill us, and you're really bad at driving when you're stressed out."

"Fine," she said. "Do I look appropriate enough for this party?"

He looked her up and down. She was wearing a navy blue babydoll dress with a long silver necklace and black booties. Her hair was long, straight, and parted down the middle.

"You look like a damn dream," he told her.

"But do I look appropriate enough for this party?" she asked again.

"Nobody cares what you look like."

"I'll be the only white person there, but okay."

"Baby girl," he said sternly. "You look good. Now, we gotta get going if we wanna get there before it ends."

"Mexican parties end?" she asked.

He laughed once, loudly. "Nah."

They got into his car, the busted little blue one, and took off.

* * *

It really was a long drive to Renton, but Paul and Bella weren't late to the house party at all. It was one of his little cousins' birthdays, which really meant it was an excuse for everyone on Paul's mom's side of the family (and then some) to get drunk.

Bella and Paul got drunk with the rest of them, and they found themselves sitting down at a table, looking over at the people on the dance floor. A slow song was on, and various couples were dancing close, hip to hip.

"That could be us," Paul said to Bella.

She took another sip from her beer bottle. "But I'm white," she finished.

He laughed and took her hand. He stood up, and she followed.

"I'm gonna look stupid," she said.

"Nobody cares if you look stupid," he replied.

They didn't even go out to the dance floor—they just held each other close and swayed. He had his hands on her hips, secure and guiding. She brought her hands up to his neck and put her head to his chest. She felt like she was underwater, but she didn't mind. She wasn't drowning.

"You really know what you're doing," she told Paul.

"You already know," he replied. "Thanks for coming through tonight, baby girl."

She rubbed circles on his back with her fingertips. She knew it got him to relax, which he wasn't used to.

"Let's go," she said. "I'm tired."

He didn't fight her. He just took her hand again and they left.

* * *

They ended up on the swing set in the backyard. It wasn't too cold out, for once. Then again, they weren't in the badlands. They knew they would just come running back, though. The place was a beacon for people like them.

But even though they weren't at their strongest here in Renton, two hundred miles away, they were still at their bravest. Together and apart, Bella and Paul were brave people. That was what made them different. That was what made them special. Especially to Bella.

"Paul," she began, "I love you—like, a lot."

"Mm-hmm?" he asked like he was used to hearing this. Maybe he was.

"And you know that I love like crazy. I get so wrapped up in whoever I'm with until I go overboard and fuck it all up, but when I'm with you, I know you won't let me do that. You can keep up with me."

He nodded. "And _you_ can keep up with me," he agreed.

"Yeah. I hope you're not too cool to get my feelings, though, you know? 'Cause if you're anything like me, which you've got to be, you can come off as pretty heartless."

He'd heard that before. Something like that.

"Just don't get too far ahead of me," she told him. "Because I like you just where you are."

"Bella, I love the fuck out of you," he replied. "And I'll be right where you want me. Any time, any day."

She smiled at him, and then she looked down at the ground like she was ashamed of something.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Nothing," she replied. "I just wish I met you _years_ ago, when I was fifteen, sixteen."

"Why's that?" he wondered.

"You might have saved my whole damn life."

He felt a million positive ways about Bella, but suddenly, everything froze in place. The earth could have stopped moving with what she just told him.

It was all happening.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	65. LXV

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. So, anyway, here is chapter 65 of Static. It's shorter, but it was kind of cathartic to write it. It kind of means a lot to me._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXV.**

 _i'm the one who had to learn to build a heart made of armor_

* * *

A few days later, Charlie and Sue called up Bella, Leah, and Seth, inviting them to dinner. They all met up at Charlie's house and soon after sitting down at the table, pizza boxes ready, Leah took a look at Sue's left hand. On her ring finger sat a pretty little diamond.

"Are you kidding me?" Leah blurted out.

"Dang, Lee," Seth said. "You could at least _act_ like you're happy for them."

Leah sneered at Seth and then glanced at Bella. She didn't even look surprised; she actually looked excited. Leah _was_ warned, after all.

"No, no, I'm totally happy for you guys," Leah said to Charlie and Sue. "When did this happen?"

"Last night," Sue replied, a huge grin on her face.

"We just thought we'd have the family over to celebrate," Charlie added.

 _The family._ Leah almost threw up a little in her mouth. She tried to take the feeling back, though. She tried to be better.

"Congratulations, you guys," Seth said.

"Yeah, congratulations," Bella echoed.

"So when's the wedding?" Leah inquired. "Is it soon?"

"We haven't really worked those details out yet," Sue replied, "but we're just thinking of going to Vegas."

"That sounds fun," Seth said. "I wanna go."

"Yeah, right," Leah said to him.

Even though she was kind of surprised, Leah wasn't against any of this. The death of her father still felt fresh to her—it might always feel that way, she had decided—but things were looking up for Sue. It had been over three years now since Harry had passed away. Sue had been through a lot in recent times, but things were looking up. Who was Leah to judge for moving on?

She looked to her left—Seth would always be her brother. He'd just always be there for her. He was her best friend. Then she looked to her right—calling Bella her stepsister would be a stretch. She didn't _hate_ her, exactly, but that didn't mean she particularly liked her. And it wasn't like they were little kids; they wouldn't have to live with each other or anything.

But Leah and Bella would have to coexist, and they'd have to do it peacefully despite their current alliances. Separately, they were okay people; it was when they were together that things could get touchy.

That was why Bella and Paul made so much sense together.

Leah tried not to think about them together, or how inadequate she must have been for him to choose someone like her. It worked for a little while.

* * *

After dinner, she went home to her condo and broke the news to Kim, who was both excited and slightly skeptical. Neither of them had anything to do, so they fell into their old routine and decided to watch _Selena._ Before they could start, they had to have an appropriate amount of snacks, and that was when Leah made her way to the pantry.

"Lee?" Kim called from the living room.

"Yeah?"

"Is there anything else you wanna watch tonight? We always watch _Selena_."

"You _know_ that's my comfort movie," Leah said as she scanned the pantry. All she found were one-and-a-half granola bars and an empty Pop Tarts box that had to have been there since 1995.

"Well, do you have any other comfort movies?" Kim asked.

Leah left the pantry and looked to the refrigerator, as well as the pictures of her three favorite singers taped to it. "I'll have another comfort movie when they finally make something about Amy Winehouse," she said.

"We don't _need_ an Amy Winehouse movie," Kim said. "I mean, we have Adele."

Leah peered into the refrigerator. All she saw were eggs and a half-empty bottle of spicy mustard. "Adele is a fuckin' fraud."

"Okay, so I guess we're watching _Selena_ tonight."

Leah closed the refrigerator and went to the entryway, looking for her sandals. "I'll tell you what," she began. "I'll blow a bunch of money on snacks from the grocery store while you look for something else to watch."

"Is there anything you're specifically looking for?"

Leah looked at Kim and smiled. "I love a good femme fatale."

"As if I didn't know that."

* * *

Tonight, Leah sought more variety in her snack endeavors, but she quickly found herself idly strolling through the junk food aisle of the Thriftway. She had one earbud in, listening to one of the forty songs she had on her little MP3 player, as she examined every item in nearly every shelf. She made a mental list of things she should get later when she'd have more money.

She was having a good time. She was having a perfectly good, absentminded yet blissful time in the Thriftway, minding her own business and doing her own thing until she bumped carts with somebody.

Taking out her one earbud and looking up, she realized that she couldn't get too far away from Paul even if she tried.

He was wearing a leather jacket and looking older since the last time she'd seen him. He looked exhausted. Overwhelmed. Too unlike the time he'd been with Bella at the restaurant. He'd seemed carefree back then.

"Hey," Leah said, her voice quiet and serene and cold as snow. "Watch where you're going."

He didn't have the energy to play around. "Hey, Leah," he said. "How've you been?"

"I'm fine," she replied curtly. "You?"

"I'm alright."

"So what do you want?" she asked, not caring about how rude she sounded. (She was allowed to be honest with him.) "Because you didn't have to knock your cart into mine to get my attention."

"I just…" He looked genuinely lost. "I just wanted to talk."

"I'm not in a rush," she said. "I guess we can talk, then."

He was a living contradiction as he fell silent. He made her fill the void like she always did.

"How's Bella?" Leah asked.

"We both know damn well that you Bella doesn't mean shit to you," he said.

"She kind of has to mean shit to me now," she replied. "She's gonna be my stepsister pretty soon."

Paul's eyes widened.

Leah cocked her head to the side in response. "What, you didn't know?" she asked before he could say anything. "Was she too embarrassed to tell you?"

He didn't respond to any of her questions. Instead, he just closed his eyes, took a breath, and became present again. "Bella is fine," he told her. "She's beautiful and amazing and… just fine."

Paul wasn't the most articulate man, but he could always say gorgeous things about the woman he was infatuated with at the moment; it was his specialty.

Leah held her tongue. What was she supposed to say? That he was wrong, and that Bella wasn't right for him? She could never tell him he was wrong; he'd never believe it because he was the most righteous man on the planet.

Yet somehow, she got the impression that he was lying. She could see right through him because nobody loved him like she loved him. Nobody had the capacity to know him like she knew him.

She felt like a fucking fool because of all this.

She just gave him a look, and despite the fact that this "conversation" had been started by him, he left the direction if it to her."Lee, what are you trying to get at?" he asked her.

"Lee, what are you trying to get at?" he asked her.

"I just want closure," she admitted. "I saw you and Bella together the other night at the burger place, and you looked so… carefree. I want you to be happy, I really do, but I can't help but wonder what is it about Bella that made you finally want to stay. You hold her hand in public. You haven't even abandoned her yet because you know she can't stand being single. What does she give you that I never gave you?" _Besides a quick fuck, an upper hand, and mindless devotion._

"You and me aren't the same people right now than when we were fifteen, sixteen," he stated, avoiding her question completely. "We've changed."

 _So full of shit_ , Leah thought. _Paul, who avoided personal growth like the plague, is admitting that he's changed?_

"No, I know that already," she replied. "We _have_ changed, and I'm not even afraid to admit it. I'm better now; you're just something else. And don't think that this is some desperate plea, 'cause I don't want you back. Just know this—me and Bella are two different people. You may have fucked _me_ over plenty of times, but I'm still here. You're gonna have a lot more blood on your hands if you ruin a girl like her, and in the end, it won't even be _your_ blood."

They were silent for a moment. She hated it. She also hated him, but she wanted him to fight back. She didn't like him letting her win.

"You know why I didn't ask about you and that fool Jacob?" Paul asked Leah.

Leah pursed her lips. "Because you don't care whether or not I'm happy with him," she assumed.

"Not even that," he told her. "It's because I _know_ you're happy with him."

"So what makes him a fool?" Leah challenged.

"His dumb ass should've started fighting for you _years_ ago."

Leah scoffed. "Better late than never, right?" she asked, putting more junk food into her shopping cart. "Maybe _your_ dumb ass should've stopped playing me years ago. Ever consider that?"

She put her earbud back in and began to push her cart and walk past him, but he grabbed her by the arm, holding her back.

"Leah," he said.

She looked up at him. "What?" she demanded, clearly annoyed.

"I'm just glad Jake didn't make you all soft."

"Nobody makes me all soft anymore," she assured him. "You know how that shit goes."

He looked clearly ashamed. She wanted to laugh in his face, but she knew she was better than that.

Instead, she just shrugged out of his grip. "Go home to your girl," she told him. "It's getting late."

She began to push her cart again, and he finally let her go.

Paul didn't want to admit it—because he loved Bella, he really did—but he was finally facing the repercussions for mistreating the most important person in his life. Leah was just the kind of girl that a guy would meet when he was young, too young to know how to treat her right, and too senseless, too selfish to know how to keep her. Leah was the kind of girl who could haunt a man forever, having him thinking about the endless possibilities until the end of his days.

Without batting a lash, he watched her leave, and he knew he wouldn't get her back ever again.

* * *

Paul wasn't as badass or mysterious as he had hyped himself up to be for years now, and Leah could definitely read deeply into people, but she hadn't been right about _everything_.

Paul was still into Bella, of course, but since he had taken her to that party and she had confessed her feelings to him, he had been avoiding her. Not in a full-time way, where he would actually leave and maybe come back, but he would be emotionally present for only _part_ of the time. He would listen to _part_ of what she had to say. And of course, he would return _part_ of her calls.

Paul and Bella were physically compatible, but they had different values. They had two different things going on in the head. He hadn't meant to sort of denounce her feelings. He just never thought someone would get so attached to him. Bella had real feelings for him, but he found himself having real feelings for her, too. That was where he was all messed up.

They weren't that compatible, but their connection ran deep. Why couldn't he just accept it without a fight?

When he left the Thriftway that night, he felt awful, which was a feeling that didn't come around too often. In the near-empty parking lot, he looked through his shitty flip phone. He had three missed calls from Bella. He wondered how many more ignored calls would pass before her blood became an issue.

She had left him a voicemail message about three minutes ago. He brought his phone up to his ear and decided to listen to it.

It was silent at first, and he almost ended it, but then Bella's tipsy voice came crooning in like a swan song. He stopped breathing.

"Hey, Paul," she said. "I miss you with my entire heart right now. Where have you been? No, no, fuck that—where did you _go_? Because I've been looking for you and I… I can't find you anywhere. I think you got too far ahead of me. I can't keep up. And I know what you're thinking—how drunk _is_ this girl? Well, I haven't been very bad without you here with me, but I might just have to turn it up a notch. No matter how fucked up I really am, just know that it's never going to change how I feel about you. You know that? 'Cause even though you fail to call me back, I still miss you. You could come back right now and I'd still miss you. So come through for me, just this once. Come through for baby girl. I love you."

The message ended. Paul looked up at the bright lights of the Thriftway, and he found himself running back in like the fool he was. Miraculously enough, though, he didn't have any regrets. He knew where he wanted to be now.

Paul stopped at the entrance of the Thriftway, approaching the wall of flowers leftover from Valentine's Day. This was the longest February of his entire life.

He called Bella back, and she answered on the seventh ring. "You called back," she said softly, slowly.

"What kinda flowers you like?" he asked quickly.

"Flowers are cheesy."

"But what do you like?"

"...Roses," she admitted.

"That's boring."

" _I'm_ boring."

"No, you're not. Love you." He hung up, purchased the prettiest bouquet on the wall, and rushed back to their little house in La Push. She was waiting in their bed, looking like a goddamn dream. He embraced her, and she felt like home.

Paul was the type to not belong anywhere, but the world was moving again and they were on the same page.

It was all happening, and he was right in place.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	66. LXVI

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. So here is chapter 66. It's even shorter than the last one, but I put a lot of heart and pretty details into it. But since every last one of you guys seems to hate Paul and Bella, it probably won't mean much. And that's okay, I guess, but don't ignore them for long. Next chapter will have a lot more motion._

 _Thanks for sticking around and of course, enjoy._

 **LXVI.**

 _for you, i was a flame_  
 _love is a losing game_  
 _five story fire as you came_  
 _love is a losing game_

* * *

"That was the last box," Bella said a few days later, as she dumped a cardboard box of dollar store macaroni into a pot of hot water on the shabby stove.

She tried not to worry, but she couldn't help it. She and Paul were amorous lovers. They were carefree, full-time lovers with an _us against the world_ attitude, but so far, the world was winning and they were too broke to even put up a fight.

"So what are we gonna do about it?" Paul asked from the couch, a beer in his hand and his eyes on the static television screen, trying to focus on ESPN.

"You know my truck is fucked up," she called from the kitchen. "Jacob's still looking at it, but he says it just might have died."

"Should've taken it to a real mechanic," he replied.

"We're on a budget," she reminded him. "That's why we're out of our last box of macaroni and cheese, Paul."

"Okay, okay," he said. "I'll go get more, then."

"With what money?"

"I'll find some."

"But would you come back in ten minutes?" she tested him. "Or an hour? How about a week?"

"Calm the hell down," he told her. "All your whining isn't really helping the situation."

She left the kitchen and he found her sitting right next to him on the couch.

She loved him. She still did. That was what she told herself every single day as she woke up on a mattress on the floor with Paul in the house where his father had beaten him countless times. She told herself that she still loved him when they would have TV for breakfast and sleep for dinner once they were out of canned vegetables and macaroni and cheese, completely void of energy. When he would forget to go get food or forget to pay the water bill on time, she remembered that she still loved him. That didn't last long, though, because her stomach would always speak much louder than love.

And that was what killed her about Paul: he lived on a completely different wavelength than her, where reality didn't matter and his heart would always roar louder than his stomach could ever growl.

Paul was pure fire all on his own, and he had attracted Bella like an inquisitive, helpless moth. He'd changed her, too, so that she had become a flame, latching on to him, helping him grow stronger and bolder and more energized. But when her little flame had died out, had he noticed? Had he seen her? Why couldn't he see her?

Why couldn't he see her?

Everybody else could.

She leaned forward, pressing her elbows to the tops of her cold thighs. She stared vacantly at the beer stain (or was it a blood stain?) in the carpet. She'd been especially lifeless lately. She supposed that the lack of food could have a part in that. She had constant headaches and frequently felt nauseous despite not consuming much. She was also _exhausted._ She felt like a zombie. If she wasn't so empty now, she would be going crazy about the stain, running around like a hurricane just to erase it.

Paul put his hand on her lower back, gently rubbing tiny shapes into it with his thumb. His hand was scorching, but it didn't feel brand-new it all.

It was raining hard outside, and Bella prayed for the silence. The gods didn't listen. The roof of the house was especially a wreck this winter—there were a couple pails scattered throughout the living room, catching the raindrops that constantly fell in this part of Washington. Every time the pails would overflow at the worst of times and Bella and Paul had to dump them out in the front yard, she would tell herself that she still loved him. It wasn't even a lie—it was a motto.

 _I still love you_ was their motto through everything. Through the car troubles and the money troubles, through the rhythm of the rain drizzling above them, through their naked bodies so often together, through the tattered sheets and destroyed mattress, there was still love. The lack of worries also remained. _Don't worry about it_ prevailed when _I still love you_ didn't seem quite true.

 _Don't worry about it—I still love you. I still love you, so don't worry about it._

He continued to rub his thumb into the small of her back. "Don't worry about it, baby girl," he told her. "I still love you."

She squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them, tears immediately starting rolling down her cheeks. She was ashamed of them, but she couldn't do anything about them.

He muted the TV. "What's wrong?"

"I've been thinking of leaving town," she confessed. "I think I just might."

"Where have you been thinking of going?" he asked.

"Florida, so I can live with my mom."

He didn't take his hand off her or clench his fist or anything. Nothing changed. She wondered if he was deaf.

"I've been feeling… _off_ about this whole thing we're doing," she told him. "I've been feeling that way for a while now, and I was hoping all that would change because I love you— _so_ much—but nothing has changed."

"I guess that's why you've been living out of a suitcase since you moved in, right?" he asked quietly.

She nodded. "Yeah, that's why," she replied.

He didn't even blink. It killed her. She wanted him to fight her, wanted him to cuss at her and make her feel bad. Where was the fire in him? Where was the energy, the light? Why couldn't she see him?

She tried to bring it out in him, not just for the sake of a fight, but for _them_. "I love you," she told him again, "but—"

"No," he interrupted her, taking his hand off her back and sitting up straight. "No, _fuck_ that. Bella, where we are right here, right now, is all we'll ever need. We don't need nobody else. We especially don't need your mom. We're grown."

 _There's my fire._

"What if I don't wanna be grown just yet? You really think living like _this_ is ideal?" She gestured to the buckets of rainwater. "We're fucking broke."

"I've been broke all my life."

"Yeah, well, I don't wanna live like this forever. And even then, I've still got some real fucked up shit to go through in my head, and living here isn't gonna make it better, Paul."

"So that's it?" he asked her, a disgusted look on his face. "You don't wanna try and make this work? You just wanna run off because you _think_ it's not gonna get better?"

"You're _such_ a hypocrite!" Bella cried. "We're nearly the same person."

"Shut the fuck up," he told her.

"No, _you_ shut the fuck up," she retorted. "Don't act like you haven't been running away your whole life. You run away from home, from the people who love you, from everybody. Now you're suddenly an advocate for hope and that _it gets better_ bullshit because maybe _I_ don't wanna deal with everything? Fuck outta here."

He just shook his head. "You're wrong, Bella," he said. "You don't know how wrong you are."

"What's the difference between you and me, then?" she asked. "How is my decision different than any of yours?"

"The difference," he replied, his voice hard and cold, "is that nobody has ever wanted me to stay. I actually _want_ you to stay."

More tears began to form in her eyes, and she couldn't do anything to stop them. "You think shit's that easy?" she asked him. "You think you can just say you want me around and it's like I'm all better?"

"I guess so," he said quietly.

"I take back what I said about us being the same person. I love you, but you can't fix me."

"I don't think I can fix anything," he admitted. "I know damn well I can't fix people."

"No one can," she said. "It's okay."

"I'm gonna fight for you," he promised her. "I can't fix you, but I sure as hell can fight for you."

Bella was such a crier. She had always been a crier, and she would never stop being a crier—especially after this. Her heart felt so heavy. _She_ felt heavy, with her exhausted eyes and undying headache, but Paul always had the capacity to make her feel lighter. He was a light on his own, and when he touched her—when he finally touched her again—he made her feel kind of light herself.

He kissed her, and she knew that it was proof that he would fight for her. What people always said about her was true: Bella would do anything for love. She would kill for love. She would die for it. She would believe in it for the _sake_ of it. It was a blessing and a curse all in one.

Just like Paul.

She still loved him nonetheless. With him, she had nothing to worry about.

It was raining hard outside—it just might never stop. It was also raining inside. Both Bella and Paul knew the pails would overflow again, but it didn't matter. The world came crashing down on them in their house in La Push, the badlands, but it was okay.

They were the last couple on earth.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** If you skipped this chapter due to the involvement of Bella and Paul, that's okay. There's more to come in the next chapter!_

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	67. LXVII

_**A/N:**_ _I don't own Twilight. So here is chapter 67 of Static. I've noticed that the review page for this story has been more active than… how do I say this… EVER, so catch my (short) response after the jump if you care enough._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXVII.**

 _been tryin' hard not to get into trouble, but i_  
 _i've got a war in my mind_

* * *

Bella lay in her and Paul's mattress later that night, wrapped in a sheet, trying to collect her thoughts. Her gaze fell on the seemingly lone light in the room, which came from the space between the bathroom door and the ground. Paul had been in the bathroom for a while now, dead silent.

Bella rolled over to her other side and saw that the living room light was still on. Then it hit her.

 _Shit,_ she thought. _The stove._

Still wrapped in the bed sheet, Bella paced off to the kitchen only to nearly slip and fall on lukewarm water and limp macaroni noodles. The remains of what could have been her meal of the night if she hadn't been so careless were all over the wet kitchen floor. She had never felt so fucking stupid, and that was saying a lot.

 _Fuck it,_ she thought as she shut the stove off. _Paul has to have some money somewhere. He can always pull money out of thin air._

She called out his name, but she got no response. Impatient and stubborn, she kept calling his name, but she never got a response as simple as a _What_?

She padded off to the bedroom and didn't bother to turn on the light. She walked straight across the dim room and knocked on the bathroom door.

"Hey," she said. "Open up, babe."

The door quickly swung open, and Bella immediately faced Paul. He wore a look of confusion, fear, and… shame.

Paul was anything but shameful.

"What's going on?" she asked. "Are you okay?"

He remained silent, and Bella realized what was wrong. Their mistake washed right over her.

She took a step back and pushed her hair back with her hands, inhaling deeply, wishing this was just a bad dream that she could wake up from, but she kept looking back at Paul and nothing would be different. He was as static as ever.

"When did it break?" she asked him as if he was supposed to know. "God, could you just try to be a _little_ helpful?"

"What's done is done," he said, his voice bleak.

"This is so fucking stupid," she muttered, going back into their dark bedroom. She removed the sheet and found some sweatpants discarded on the ground. She pulled them on and started to look for a t-shirt. "You are so fucking stupid, Paul."

"So this is all my fault, right?" he asked her, his voice hard.

"You've had sex, like, a million times and you still don't know how to use a fucking condom?" she shouted. "How many other girls have you gotten pregnant out of straight up carelessness?"

"Cool, so _I'm_ the careless one," he said, entering the bedroom, looking for his own clothes. "You've had, what, _three_ boyfriends and don't know what Plan B is? Or the fucking pill? You're telling me that _you_ don't know what the pill is?"

"Condoms are cheap, jackass," she replied. "And for your information, all my money goes to my _truck,_ or _food,_ or our _bills,_ or my fucking _school_. I don't know where the fuck you seem to be getting money from, but if we can't afford mac and cheese, I don't see how we ever had a chance of being able to afford the pill, so try me again."

He didn't have anything to say to her as he put on his clothes. She was right.

"You said you wanted me to stay," she reminded him as she picked up around the room. "I guess this is it. I _really_ can't go anywhere now. Was this some sort of trap? I mean, you're damn persuasive and I'm clearly an idiot. You call me _baby girl_ and tell me not to worry about it, and then I fall for it every single time. Well, congratulations, Paul. You did it. Now I don't have a choice _but_ to stay in Forks. In fact, you could do the easy thing and just fucking leave right now. It's what you're good at, anyway."

"Are you done?" Paul asked her. "'Cause you're ranting."

"Like I don't have a reason to be mad," she said sarcastically. "You really don't care at all, do you?"

"Look, Bella, we don't even know for sure if you're pregnant. We should go to the doctor tomorrow morning."

"Paul, I've got work tomorrow morning," she said curtly. "I'm really in no place to be missing out on hours. And, anyway, you don't know if you're pregnant the very next day. That's not how it works."

"So have you missed your period or what?"

"I haven't been getting my period regularly, but shit happens when you're stressed out all the time and haven't been eating much."

"Aw, _shit_ , Bella, I'm so fucking sorry."

"What's done is done," she said, echoing him.

"Well, look." In the dim lighting of their bedroom, he took her hands. "I'm still gonna stay with you through this. I know too many people whose fathers left them before they were even born. I'm not gonna be that guy, okay?"

She just pulled her hands away, crossed her arms over her chest, and looked up at him with an upset look. Classic Bella.

"I've got work in the morning," she told him.

She got into the mattress and tried to fall asleep, but the sound of the rain pouring into the living room was deafening.

* * *

Paul dropped off Bella at Sunshine Childcare the next morning, and she exited the car with as little as a wave goodbye.

In the afternoon, Paul was in between cleaning the house, calling up relatives on his mom's side for money, and looking for money of his own when he got a call from Bella's boss. Bella had collapsed at work and was on her way to the hospital.

With his heart pounding, Paul drove as fast as he could to the hospital in Forks without getting pulled over. He found it disgustingly ironic that the last time he was here, it had been because of Bella. The same thing was happening now, and yet again, he didn't know what to expect.

In the ER, after running blood tests, it had been determined that her blood sugar was low and that she was also pregnant. By the looks of it, she was about three weeks along.

Bella, in Paul's arms, immediately broke down in tears. The doctor gave them a moment alone, and by the time Bella was done sobbing, Paul's shirt was drenched.

He tried to imagine everything that was going through her mind, but he just couldn't. He knew she was regretful and terrified, but he couldn't come close to imagining the extent. He just stroked her hair and held her tight in his arms.

"I'm so fucking sorry for putting you through this," he told her.

"It's not all your fault," she whimpered. "I'm not mad. I just… It's been a long day."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Don't worry about it."

"Don't tell me that. Don't tell me not to worry about it."

"Why?"

"Because that's why we're in this situation. It's about time we start worrying about _something._ "

"No, it's not a something," he said. "It's a _someone._ "

Her mouth cracked into what could be considered a smile, and then she started crying again. It was a sorry sight. Paul started to cry with her. He couldn't tell if they were happy tears or not.

"What shitty timing," she said into his shirt.

"Why?"

"Our baby is gonna be a Scorpio." Then she started laughing.

He laughed with her. "I don't even know what the hell that means."

* * *

After scavenging their cars for cash and coupons that hadn't expired yet, Bella and Paul finally went grocery shopping the best that they could. Bella's perspective on everything had changed over the course of a few hours. Baby food on the shelves now stuck out to her. Displays of diapers now caught her eye. When she looked at Paul, she saw more than just her boyfriend. She even saw more than just her best friend, her only real friend. She saw the potential for more.

And she knew they weren't going to change overnight. They weren't going to suddenly become completely responsible adults. He wouldn't wake up the next morning with a stable job, and the amount of money in her bank account wouldn't magically increase. It would all take some time.

She just didn't know if Paul would be capable of taking that time.

This thought bothered her the entire car ride home, and when they got home that evening, she noticed how much cleaner the house was.

"Thanks for cleaning up around here," she said, setting a bag of groceries down on the table.

"No problem," he replied.

She sat down carefully on the couch, and he could tell that something was on her mind. He sat down next to her. "What's going on?" he asked her.

"A lot of things are gonna have to change around here if we're gonna make this work," she said, her eyes more tired than ever.

"We're gonna make this work, though," he said as if it was that simple. "We've got this."

She shut her eyes for a moment and then reopened them. "How?" she wondered. She still loved him, but she hadn't realized that he so often took her to be incredibly spineless.

"Well, we love each other, for one thing."

"Paul, you're killing me—you're such an idealist."

"I mean, it's true."

She felt a pang of sadness surge right through her. Paul, who hadn't grown up with something as simple, as straightforward, as uncomplicated as plain old love, thrived off the presence of love in his life now. She wanted to get mad, but she couldn't. The man just didn't _know._

"Yeah, it's true," she agreed, "but you can't just pour cement onto the ground and say you've built a home. For one thing, you need to make sure it's in the right place. You also need to make sure there are pipes for the plumbing and wood for the frames."

She glanced towards the pails on the ground. "Shit, you need a roof that does its job," she said. "You need all that and more until it comes close to a place to rest your head. Our relationship is the same thing. Love doesn't pay the bills, love doesn't keep our cars running, and love sure as hell isn't gonna keep our baby fed. We need _more_ than just love to make this work. We just need more."

"Then I'll give you more," he told her. "I promise."

"Paul, I can't keep falling into these empty promises. You can't just call me _baby girl_ and tell me not to worry about it. I still love you, but that shit ran out."

"I'll give you more," he repeated. "I will."

"What's the first step, then?" she asked. "What are you gonna do tomorrow morning when I go to school?"

"Easy. I'll apply for a job at the Thriftway."

"You don't even like Forks that much," she reminded him.

"I don't like starving my girlfriend _or_ my baby, either."

If Bella knew anything about herself, she definitely knew that she was soft on the inside despite all that she'd been through. She knew she was a believer and that she was in love with the idea of love. But when Paul leaned in to kiss her, she felt a bit of pride knowing that he hadn't stolen her mind again. It would be the last time, and it was a promise to herself that she knew she could keep.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I'm not trying to sell the concept of Paul x Bella to you guys. I'm just trying to keep it all in perspective and write a story. Trust me. The story isn't over until it's over, and I promise you that there is a lot more to come. My inbox is open for any and all private questions regarding the story and/or how I go about writing it._

 _That being said, let's keep it moving._

 _And of course, thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	68. LXVIII

_**A/N:**_ _I don't own Twilight. Here is chapter 68 of Static, where the shift in focus changes for a moment. Warning: this chapter contains some gun violence._

 _Enjoy._

 _(In response to the most recent guest reviews:_

 _-Emma: The baby isn't Jacob's, and there is a feature on this website where when you search for characters, you can also search for pairings as indicated by brackets. This story is listed as Bella, Jacob, Leah, Paul. The order of importance should actually be different, but as disclosed at a previous time, it was automatically put in alphabetical order. I DIDN'T put any brackets indicating pairings because I already knew things would shift around as the story progressed. It would be misleading to categorize this story as Leah x Paul when they were so on and off, and the same goes for Bella x Jacob. Also, this is my last fanfiction anyway so I'd recommend leaving now. Bye._

 _-Guest: That would be craaaazy. But Emmett's role in this story only exists to show Leah's attachment to Paul, among other things._

 _-JaneAmber: Yeah, true._

 _-Other Guest: Lol._

 _-Kadence: Bye._

 _-Karma: The point of this story is that nearly nothing can stay in place. Anything can be shifted just like that. That's where the irony in the title comes in. I know exactly where this story is going. Hopefully, you'll see that, too, but the story just isn't over yet.)_

 **LXVIII.**

 _don't act like you forgot_

* * *

On the nineteenth of March, the last day of winter, Quil approached Jasper Cullen's mansion in Forks. The handgun (which Jasper had sold to him) was cold in his right hand, but he was hot with anger. For the little amount of sleep he had gotten last night, he was full of energy. The energy ran right through him, rampant and unwavering.

 _Game fuckin' over_ , Quil thought. _It's over._

And he was right—at least, partly. It would all be over soon enough.

* * *

A day prior to the last day of winter, Quil met up with Jasper in the usual spot. It was late—about nine-thirty. They stood in a dark clearing in the woods near Jasper's house in Forks, but just far enough away that Quil couldn't exactly tell where he lived, but he had a good idea. They were the same age, but Quil felt that for someone who sold guns in Forks and helped run a chop shop in Port Angeles, Jasper didn't know a damn thing about being street-smart. He wasn't book-smart, either, and it was a tragedy. Quil wasn't book-smart, but at least he _knew_ he was street-smart.

The two men were pissed at each other. They stood yards apart in the clearing with tight stances, hard faces, and closed fists.

"You need to talk to your boy Paul," Jasper said, his breath the most visible part of him out here.

"Why?" Quil asked. "He's doing everything the garage wants him to. He knows how to steal cars, and he's fucking good at it."

It was true. Paul had stolen a lot of cars for a variety of chop shops in Seattle and Los Angeles in the last few years. He didn't know anything about disassembling or assembling them, but he knew how to take them, and he was the best at it. He had stopped a while ago when he'd decided to stay in the badlands, but due to current circumstances that he said Quil didn't need to know about, Paul needed the fast cash again. He had another job—a real job—but the daytime paychecks from the Thriftway weren't cutting it. So Quil, being a good friend, had hooked Paul up with an opportunity.

"The issue isn't how he's doing it," Jasper clarified. "It's _where_ he's doing it. It's coming a little too close to where my brother lives."

"Your brother goes to school on the east coast," Quil said.

"No, the other one. The lawyer. His neighbor's car disappeared the other night and the whole neighborhood is losing their minds over it. Dude, my sister-in-law—who is already a huge bitch—is losing her mind over it. She has a fucking _baby_. You know how much stress you're putting my family under?"

"Fine, then," Quil said. "Paul won't touch your brother's perfect little neighborhood anymore, but that doesn't mean he's being put out of business."

"I never said I wanted him to be."

"You gotta keep up with your end of this, though," Quil said.

"What?"

Quil narrowed his eyes. "Don't act like you forgot I saw you with Claire the other night at Eric's place."

He hadn't seen Claire around here at all since she had broken up with him in the summer, until a few nights ago, and she had been smoking weed and drinking with none other than Jasper. Quil and Jasper were the same age (Jasper was actually a couple of months older), and if it was fucked up for Claire to be with Quil, it was fucked up for her to be with Jasper, too. And, anyway, there were plenty of dumb girls in Forks for Jasper to be with; he could leave Quil's ex alone.

"Yo, she really likes me, though," Jasper said. "You know all these Indian girls love this dick. Go ask Kim."

"Man, shut the fuck up," Quil said. "Kim doesn't even like dick, and Claire's hella young. You should quit fucking with her."

Jasper smiled a silly smile that made Quil wanna knock his teeth out. "She's not too young for me."

Quil took a huge step forward, and Jasper didn't even flinch. Quil knew sketchy people and could get into sketchy situations sometimes, but he was still the goofy kid who sat in the back of the classroom writing rhymes about the things he loved most besides his mom: money, weed, and pussy, all without trying to say the "N" word. Quil wasn't as hard as some of the people he knew out here, and neither was Jasper, but Jasper could see right through him.

And Jasper saw right through him now. Quil's clenched fist or his need to protect his underage ex-girlfriend didn't mean shit to Jasper.

Jasper stepped forward, closing the space between them, and his voice was low when he spoke. "Look, Squanto," he said. "I'm gonna fuck with whoever I want. If you know better, you'll fuck right off."

He turned around and left, leaving Quil in the clearing.

Quil remembered who he was, loosened his fist, and returned home.

* * *

That night, Quil sat in his basement. It was eleven-thirty, only a few hours after he'd met with Jasper, and Quil was rolling a blunt. He loved his mom, he really did, but he'd always been one to shift the rules around. Someone could tell him to jump, and he'd ask, "Can I hop instead?" His mom had told him not to smoke weed in the house, but the basement wasn't really part of the house. It was his own little space. If it was _really_ part of the house, she would visit it sometimes. And besides, after sending him off to Neah Bay to get clean a while ago, he clearly hadn't gotten clean.

 _Some shit just don't change,_ he thought as he lit the blunt. He had his music playing in the background, and he was starting to get into the zone.

He wasn't even that high yet when he heard tires squeal as they swerved around the corner of the street.

 _Just another rez fuckass_ , Quil thought, taking another hit.

That was when the shooting began.

The gunshots came all at once, firing seemingly randomly. He heard a bullet bounce off the metal frame of his door, and then a few more. His mother had woken up, and he could hear her screaming. She was yelling his name.

"Quil!" Joy shouted. "Are you okay?"

He put down the blunt and ran up the stairs to the rest of the house. Even the gunshots had ended, he ran in a crouch through the hallway to his mother's bedroom, where she was still yelling.

"Ma, you okay?" he asked.

"What the fuck did I tell you about smoking in the—" She was interrupted by the gunshots starting up again, and they crouched, holding each other.

The gunshots were followed by tires squealing again and maniacal cackling.

"You wait right here," he told her. "I'll be back." He let go of her and started to walk to the front door.

"What are you doing?" she demanded. "Quil Ateara, you get back here _right now_."

He ignored her and left through the front door. All he heard was his mother sobbing and the laughter continuing outside.

Just down the street, Quil saw a group of four people sitting in the bed of a pickup truck, waving their guns around. They all wore ski masks, but Quil knew exactly whose idea this was.

Jasper Cullen whipped off his mask and was howling like a fucking idiot with his group. "We just sent those assholes on the Trail of Tears," he said, high-fiving someone else in the back of the truck.

Quil ran out to the street as the truck drove away. "The Trail of… You _dumb-ass_!" he screamed. "I'm already as far west as I can get!"

The pickup truck swerved around the corner. Quil saw one of the people in the back remove their mask, and for a second, he could have sworn they were Claire.

* * *

The next day was the nineteenth of March, the last day of winter. It had been the longest winter La Push had seen, and Quil was going to put it to rest, right before the equinox, right before everything would change.

"Rich little white boy," Quil thought as he approached the giant white mansion. It was around nine at night.

Only rich little white boys didn't feel bad about dropping out of U-Dub in order to amount to helping run chop shops and sell guns from their parents' house. It was fucking ridiculous. It was also maybe the least inconspicuous thing Quil had ever seen. Not only was Jasper Hale a rich little white boy, but a _stupid_ rich little white boy, too. He had won it all; in a perfect world, he had beat the fucking game.

They didn't live in a perfect world, though. They lived nowhere near it. They lived in the badlands.

All it had taken Quil was a Google search and a little math to figure out Jasper's whole deal. He hadn't had to go to college in the first place, and he was loved so very dearly by his parents (his father was a doctor, and his mother was an interior designer). He had two brothers, too, but Quil already knew that. Back when Quil had been just getting started with selling weed, one of his regulars had been Edward Cullen, who Bella had dated for a long time. And of course, he had to tell Paul to stay away from Emmett's rich neighborhood in Port Angeles. It was all these local connections that kept Jasper as trapped as possible, and he was a goddamn idiot for that.

But he'd learn.

Jasper's whole deal was all so disrespectful that Quil couldn't wrap his mind around it. It was _insane_. Quil wasn't doing his business for the fun of it like Jasper was; Quil couldn't just tap out when it got a little hard and go back to his regular life. This business _was_ Quil's regular life, even if he was still kind of soft. Jasper was in it for the entertainment, but Quil was in it to survive. It just wasn't fucking fair.

So who was _Jasper—_ this stupid, rich, little white boy—to pull up to Quil's house last night with his posse of other bored, stupid, rich little white boys (plus Claire, who Quil had _explicitly_ told him to stay away from), and start shooting up the place just for kicks?

Only Jasper would be that obvious—Quil felt a bit offended that his only enemy (that he knew of) was _this_ stupid. Only Jasper would think that was funny; he'd seen _Friday_ a little too many times from his U-Dub dorm or his parents' den.

It was a bad joke, though. Quil having to calm his crying, anxious mother down until the morning was a bad joke. A horrible joke. It was about as funny as the Trail of Tears. Jasper had to be _hilarious_. He also didn't have any cameras in or around his house, because nothing ever happened in quaint, little Forks, but La Push had to be hell on Earth. That was a funny-ass joke on Jasper's end.

Quil was a funny guy, though, and everyone knew it. _Quil, you're hilarious. Quil, you're too funny. Quil, you have such a great sense of humor._

Quil had some jokes of his own tonight.

 _Ding-dong._ Quil didn't bother to put the gun in his pocket or anything; he held it right at his side. Jasper wasn't down in his basement—Quil had scoped the place out about a minute ago and had seen very clearly that Jasper was in his living room, his eyes glued to the plasma television screen. He had a nice Xbox. There was also a twenty dollar bill waiting on his coffee table. Money for pizza, probably.

 _Delivery._

Jasper, being the complete idiot that he was, didn't even check who was there before opening the door. He just swung it open. He didn't see the gun until it was between his eyes. He was unarmed except for a twenty dollar bill.

Quil didn't say anything; he didn't have to. He just wished he could hear Jasper scream. He wanted to hear that asshole scream for as long as Quil had to hear his own mother sobbing her eyes out last night. There just wasn't time for that, though. Quil had business to do, and it was the end of Jasper's pleasure.

Jasper ended up on the ground with a hole in his forehead. Quil ended up driving back home with twenty dollars in his pocket.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	69. LXIX

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. Right now, I'm kind of on a roll with this story. I tweaked - okay, scrapped - some ideas and added a touch of Drama_ _™. Hopefully, I've been rid of all the people who find themselves frustrated while reading this story. Now to the people who actually enjoy it, let's ride. I can't wait to share what's coming up next with you guys._

 _This chapter isn't as wild as other ones; it's really a response to the previous one, featuring Quil, Embry, and heavy dialogue. Warning: suicide is a prominent theme in this chapter._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXIX.**

 _you could be a bad motherfucker_  
 _but that don't make you a man_

* * *

Quil called Embry just after he got home from killing Jasper that night, the last night of winter. The vernal equinox wouldn't be until tomorrow, but with the way Quil had handled matters, things seemed to be balancing out already. The equinox had come early.

Embry, reliable as ever, answered the phone. "What's up?"

The twenty dollar bill burned in Quil's pocket, but taking it out and setting it down on the table in his basement didn't make him feel any better. It sat right next to the gun. _Cause and effect._

"How do I kill myself without my mom finding out?" he asked.

Embry hung up and was knocking on the basement door in two minutes. Quil, completely paranoid, waited a moment before even getting up from the couch. That was when Embry thought he'd lost him. Embry knocked on the door harder and harder until his fist hurt, and Quil finally swung the wooden door back and brought the metal one forward. He looked like he'd been crying, and Embry looked like he was about to cry himself.

Quil angrily wiped at his own face. "The fuck are you doing here for?" he asked. "You scared the shit outta me."

"What's going on?" Embry asked.

Quil, wordless, just let Embry into the basement.

Embry looked down at the table and saw the gun. "What's that?" was all he asked.

"It's a gun, dumb-ass."

"No, Quil, where did you get it?"

"Embry, that's not the point. I'm about to kill myself."

"Why?"

Quil just collapsed onto the couch, his head in his hands. He wasn't crying, but he was about to. "Man, you're gonna hate me if I tell you," he said, his voice muffled.

"No, I'm gonna hate you if you _don't_ tell me."

Quil was silent for a few moments, and Embry just sighed. Then Quil looked up. "I killed someone tonight," he said quietly.

"Deadass?" Embry asked.

"Yeah, man, his ass is _dead_ ," Quil said. "That dumb-ass is just lying on his front porch with a fuckin' hole in his forehead. His nice-ass Xbox is probably still on, too. And the pizza man—oh God, Embry, the fuckin' _pizza man_ is gonna find him! Could you imagine going into work thinking you're gonna have a regular night until you find a dead body?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Embry said. "Hold up. _Who_ did you kill?"

"Nobody we know," Quil replied. "His name was Jasper. He used to be my friend, but then we started having issues. I just… I snapped, man."

"So you think _this_ is how you solve your issues?" Embry demanded. "Look, I hate eighty-eight percent of my coworkers, but do you think I'm gonna kill someone every time we have issues? No, Quil, we just grow the hell up and move on. We don't just snap like that."

Quil didn't say anything at all. He just glowered at Embry.

"What's next?" Embry asked. "Are you gonna shoot the next person who talks crazy to you or even looks at you funny? Are you gonna shoot _me?_ What, Quil, are you gonna snap again?"

"Don't fuckin' be like that," Quil said. "Don't say that, Embry! I mean, shit, you were _there_! You _heard_ the gunshots when they pulled up on our street last night. They fuckin' shot up my house and scared the shit outta my mom. If I didn't do anything, he would have gotten away with it."

"Okay, well, get this," Embry replied. "You're not fuckin' Batman. You sell weed on a reservation."

"I should just kill myself," Quil said. "Everybody always said I wouldn't amount to shit. They're right. I'm just as dumb as everyone expected me to be."

"I mean, if you wanna become a stereotype, then sure," Embry said, "but we both know that's not what you want. Quil, you fucked up, but that doesn't mean you've gotta kill yourself. Shit, what would your _mom_ think?"

"She'd lose her mind."

"She'd lose her _mind_ ," Embry echoed.

"I can't take it back, though. Killing Jasper."

"No, you can't, but you can try to make things better."

Quil shook his head. "I can't turn myself in. That'd be exposing the chop shop and everyone involved. That'd be exposing Paul, and I can't do that."

"What has Paul ever done for us?" Embry asked. "When has he ever _not_ been completely selfish?"

"Don't say that," Quil told him. "I get it, nobody really fucks with him, but the guy's family to me. To us. And he needs the extra money. I just can't do that to him."

"Then don't turn yourself in," Embry said. "But you've gotta get off the streets."

"I've been out here since I was fourteen, fifteen," Quil said. "It's not as easy as you think."

"Of course, it's not easy," Embry agreed, "but you've still gotta do it. You can start by getting a real job. I can talk to my boss and put in a good word for you at the diner."

"That's real por-active—"

"Proactive," Embry corrected him.

" _Proactive_ of you, but I just need some time, okay?"

"You could kill yourself in that amount of time," Embry said bluntly. "It's best to just get off to a fresh start as soon as possible. I swear to God, you'll feel a whole lot better. A new job makes everyone feel better."

"The thing is, though, you don't know everything," Quil asserted. "Honestly, you don't know _shit_. Who the fuck told you that we can make it? That we're equal? We're fuckin' _native_ , Embry. We live on a goddamn reservation! _You_ grew up with a single mom and you didn't find out you share a dad with Sam until you were, like, nineteen. Now you wanna tell me that I'll feel better if I get a real job?

"Embry, the guy I killed today was _my_ age and did nearly the same sketchy things that _I_ do, but if you turn on the TV _right now_ , the whole country will be in a goddamn crisis, with every channel talking about how some rich-ass white boy from Forks had his whole life ahead of him, as if he wasn't a college dropout and fucking an underage girl. If I killed myself _right now_ , it would be old news by next week. So fuck outta here with that white shit, Embry, 'cause we natives, we just ain't equal. That was never part of the plan from the moment Christopher Columbus sailed his pasty ass over here, calling us Indians."

"Look, I know we're not equal," Embry replied. "I know that 'it gets better' shit doesn't work on us, but that doesn't mean you can't try to make things better for yourself. You know what you are, Quil? You're fuckin' hardheaded. You don't wanna change because you think you'll lose something, but let's be real—what are you gonna lose if you change? You ain't shit out here, so you wouldn't lose your street cred. You're already broke, so you wouldn't lose much money. You'll lose more, like your life, if you _don't_ change. You're right that nobody's looking out for us, but that's why we've gotta start looking out for each other."

Quil was just silent. He couldn't act like Embry wasn't right. Embry was the moral compass of the entire circle of people that Quil knew—he was _always_ right. Quil couldn't fight this time, even if he really wanted to. All he could do was nod his head and accept it.

"So what are you gonna do?" Embry asked him.

"I'm gonna go get rid of this gun," he replied. "Wanna come?"

"I shouldn't."

"That doesn't answer my question."

Quil and Embry were soon in the former person's car, driving inconspicuously out to the sticks, out of town completely. They kept the radio off.

At some point, various police cars rushed past them, sirens blaring, in the opposite direction. Quil and Embry realized that the pizza man must have finally arrived at Jasper's house. It wasn't as funny as they initially thought it might be.

 _When did I decide,_ Embry thought, _that the concept of family is more important than the law?_

They drove out past Forks but not quite in Port Angeles, and then ditched the car to go out to the woods. They hadn't really thought this through, so they ended up digging into the rain-soaked earth with their bare hands. They buried the gun deep in the ground and then went back the same way they came, making sure to mess up their shoe prints on the way out of the woods.

With dirty fingernails and tired eyes, Quil drove back to La Push. He dropped Embry off at his car, just outside. Embry got out and waved to Quil.

"Take care of yourself, man," Embry said.

"I will," Quil replied. "Talk to your boss for me."

"You've got it."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	70. LXX

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. So here is chapter 70 of Static. The number 70 makes me feel so accomplished... and also sad. My final fanfic is heading towards its end. However, I'm excited to share the rest with you guys. I know I've been updating rather rapidly, but here's the rundown of what's been going on recently in Static: Bella got pregnant, Quil killed Jasper (yes, Jasper as in the brother of Edward as in Bella's ex), and Embry confronted Quil about it. _

_This chapter also features a confrontation of sorts, as well as strong(er) language and mentions of rape and abuse.  
_

 _Enjoy._

 **LXX.**

 _and to think you would get me to the altar_  
 _like i'd follow you around like a dog that needs water_

* * *

Even though the vernal equinox was the tipping point between winter and spring, Bella woke up that Thursday morning to subtle sunlight pouring through the cracks of her blinds. It made her feel like spring was really here, and she didn't hate it.

She checked her cell phone, charging on the floor next to her mattress. The alarm was supposed to go off in fifteen minutes, so she couldn't really fall back asleep, anyway. She decided that getting a head start before going to work wouldn't hurt, but when she looked at the patterns across her bare legs and the sliver of her stomach exposed, she just wanted to stay home. She didn't have any desire to do anything or go anywhere. She merely wanted to exist. And exist quietly, at that.

She looked over at the sleeping Paul, who existed beside her peacefully and completely unbothered by the sun. The guy slept like the dead in recent times. He worked overtime at the Thriftway, and then—much to Bella's dismay—he did work for the chop shop in Port Angeles at night. She'd told him to stop before he got caught, and he'd promised that he'd only keep doing it for a little while longer. He'd already sold his motorcycle, but they were still pretty tight on money. He kept his word more often than not now, so she'd believed him. She still believed him.

She looked down at the strip of her stomach that was exposed to the sunlight. She brought her hand down to it. She was about seven weeks along now, but she wished she could feel her bump already. That wouldn't be until early May, and she could certainly wait to start showing, but she also couldn't.

The little creature inside her just didn't feel real yet. He or she felt like a concept—a tactic to get Bella and Paul off their asses and stop making so many excuses. It had worked, but the fetus just didn't feel real yet. Maybe it would feel real once Bella started getting morning sickness, but she could certainly wait for all that. She briefly thought about throwing up at work and it made her want to throw up right now.

Her—their—little creature was growing, though, and she couldn't even feel it. She couldn't feel the heartbeat yet, but it was there, or at least in the making. It was a strange feeling to have—because of her job, she liked kids because she understood them better, but since she had found out she was pregnant, it had never occurred to her that she was truly growing a human. A human—half Bella, half Paul—was forming inside of her.

She thought about the conversation she'd had with Paul after that long, hard day of work when Little Bell had been taken away from Sunshine Childcare for good. Bella had tried to reason with the girl's mother, but it had amounted to nothing but senseless yelling. Even worse, it had been so evident that the girl had been abused. It sent a chill down Bella's spine to realize that the abuse probably hadn't stopped since then.

But what chilled her more than that was what Paul had told her. _"You can't save every little kid."_

The statement still rang true—she _couldn't_ save every little kid within the forty hours a week she spent at the daycare. But she could truly protect her—their—child from the avoidable horrors of the real world from by building a safe environment at home. It was easier said than done, but Bella was a believer. And she certainly believed that in time, their house in La Push would truly be a home.

The sunlight finally got to Paul and he began to stir, his eyes fluttering open. He looked at Bella, noticed her hand on her stomach and smiled. It was a genuine, sleepy, true smile. He placed his hand on top of hers and then glanced at the digital clock on the other side of the room.

"I'm a minute early," he said quietly. Then he used both hands to rub his eyes and sat up.

"Hmm?"

The alarm clock blared from the other side of the room, and Paul got up to turn it off.

"Ah, shit," he said, pacing to the chair in the room in order to find his polo and smock for work at the Thriftway.

"What's up?" she asked, sitting up.

"I forgot I told my boss over at the store that I'd come in early today," he replied. "I start in ten minutes."

"It's fine," she said. "I'll take the bus."

"You sure you know which route it is?"

She just shrugged her shoulders. "It's just a bus," she said.

"Look, I promise I'll fix up your truck," he said. "My girl doesn't belong on the bus."

"You don't know how to fix up trucks," she reminded him. "You just know how to steal them."

He quickly changed clothes while she watched him, her head tilted. "I'll run it through with my boys at the garage," he told her.

"Oh, right, so the 'real' mechanic you were referring is over there?" she asked, quoting him.

"C'mon."

"You know I don't like you working with them," she said worriedly. "I'm trying to live as anti-sketchy as possible right now."

"Don't worry about it," he told her. "I got you. And it's only temporary."

"So you're sure they're not gonna sell my engine or something?" she asked.

Paul just laughed. "Baby girl, nobody wants _your_ engine. They'll just check it out and see what they can do. If it's dead, it's dead. If it's not, you won't have to be on the bus anymore."

She smiled. "The bus never hurt anybody."

He buttoned up his pants and leaned down on the bed to kiss her. "You'd be surprised," he said softly. "Have a good day at work."

"You, too. Love you, baby."

"Love you more."

He left, and she laid back on the sheets, her hand on her stomach.

* * *

Even though the La Push-Forks bus system wasn't that confusing, Bella had found a way to mess it up. It was a good thing that she had left the house super-early. Forks had quite a few bus stops, so Bella had naturally found herself on the opposite side of town as the one where the daycare was.

 _Just my fucking luck_ , she thought.

She wasn't entirely lost; she just wasn't in the mood to walk. So because it was still early, she waited for a bus that would eventually take her in the right direction. According to the times posted at the bus stop, it was going to be a little while, but she wasn't going to freak out quite yet. The weak spring sun made her feel a little better; it was amazing to know that the quality of her mood seemed to depend on the weather.

While she was sitting at the bus stop, she got a call from a number that was familiar but not saved to her contacts. At first, she thought nothing of it but when she heard the voice on the line, she immediately regretted answering the phone in the first place.

"Bella," Edward Cullen said desperately, "You probably don't want to hear from me right now—"

She'd already had enough. "You're right."

"But my brother was murdered last night," he finished. "In Forks. At my parents' house."

His voice sounded baffled and absolutely heartbroken. It sounded like that of a stranger's—throaty and emotional and raw. It wasn't enough to draw sympathy from her, though, as heartless as that was. He was still an abuser. He was still a rapist. Nothing would make her look past that for as long as she lived.

"I'm sorry," she said dryly. "I haven't watched the news today yet."

"He was shot right on the front porch," Edward went on. "Could you at least _try_ to sound like you care at all?"

"Edward, I haven't seen you in eight months," she told him. "And the last time I saw you, you knocked the living shit out of me, robbed me, and ran off. The time before that, you raped me." The words still didn't sound real out loud even though she had already told Paul. "We didn't end on good terms, and if you didn't know it then, then you do now."

"It was my brother," he said. "I just… I don't have anybody to talk to about it."

She rolled her eyes. "You've been living in New Hampshire for years now—I'm sure you have friends. And I'm sure the press will want to talk to you about it once it hits national news."

"I'm sorry," he told her as if it was supposed to make it all better. As if he hadn't fucked her over to the max.

"You're a fucking fool," she told him. "You think that just because you said sorry, I'm supposed to feel anything short of hatred for you? I'm sorry that you and your family are going through this tragedy, I really am, but I didn't know your brother and him dying doesn't suddenly make you into a decent person. I don't owe you a thing."

It was the bravest thing Bella had said in the last five years she'd known Edward.

And to think that this was the guy that she would have married. As if she would still follow him everywhere and anywhere, helpless and thirsty and weak. As if she would still believe him when he made her feel worthless, as if nobody cared about her.

If she had learned anything while being with Edward, it was that initial compatibility didn't always last. Or maybe she was just a better person than him. She would definitely like to think that.

The whiny, sad, heartbroken facade was gone now. "You're a cunt, you know that?" he asked her.

 _Oh, I'm definitely a better person than him._

"And you're a rapist. Goodbye, Edward." She unlocked her phone to hang up on him, but he stopped her.

"Wait, Bella."

"What?" she snapped.

"Somebody murdered my brother in Forks and you don't have _any_ idea who it could possibly be?"

"What kind of question is _that_?" she replied incredulously. "I'm not friends with everybody in town; I just live here.

"But you fuck every guy in town who says one nice thing to you," he said, "so that's not very different."

"Fuck you." Then she hung up on him.

She sat at the bus stop quietly, but she felt her entire body pulsing with anger. She couldn't even get her thoughts together as she sat there, her foot shaking rapidly.

The weak spring sun beat down on her face, and she decided that not even the weather was enough to influence her mood. The equinox had come through and the tipping point had already swerved over, but spring would have to try a lot harder than this.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Next chapter is kind of big, so stay tuned._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	71. LXXI

**Part Six**

 **sonder:** the realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.

* * *

 **LXXI.**

 _do you feel like a young god?_  
 _you know the two of us are just young gods_  
 _and we'll be flying through the streets with the people underneath_  
 _and they're running, running, running again_

* * *

By Friday evening, spring in Forks had proven itself to be overrated, especially in its early stages. The rain had returned and it was as cold as ever. Bella didn't know why she was still surprised.

Raindrops splashed in the buckets strewn across the living room, and Bella tried not to let her OCD get the better of her. Paul was having someone come over tomorrow morning to patch up the roof, but tomorrow could not take long enough. Still, though, the thought of having her broken house being taken one step forward into becoming a home made her happy. Paul was remembering what she wanted. He was remembering to make an effort. Loving him didn't feel like an obligation or a chore.

She looked for food in the refrigerator, and she thought she had won when she seemed to find leftover soup in a Tupperware, hiding behind the gallon of milk. She reached far back into the fridge and pulled it out, but when she removed the lid, her olfactory system was _assaulted._ It sent her running to the bathroom.

Paul, who sat on the couch in the living room, got up and immediately comforted Bella as she kneeled over the toilet and puked her guts out. He kept her hair behind her shoulders and rubbed her back.

"This sucks," she muttered. "It's not even the morning."

He chuckled. "Need anything from the store?"

"Soup," she said weakly.

"Okay," he replied. "I'll be back."

"Hurry back."

He got his keys, put on his jacket and shoes, and left the house.

* * *

Paul ended up at the Thriftway, but in the time it had taken him to get from his house to the store, he had completely forgotten about the soup. The awful thing was that he _knew_ he forgot, but he could not—for the life of him—remember _what_ he was forgetting.

Even though he liked to think of himself as a grown man with grown responsibilities and a baby on the way, somewhere in his head still lived the distracted, forgetful, aggressive kid that hadn't outgrown ADHD. No matter how many times his father had beaten him, he hadn't knocked the disorder out of him. In truth, ADHD _wasn't_ something that somebody could outgrow. This fact hit Paul now as he wandered the Thriftway, aisle to aisle as if he didn't work there nearly every damn day. Then again, most people knew how to manage themselves. Paul was probably just stupid, and he couldn't just make himself the poster child for ADHD—it wouldn't be fair.

 _Fuckin' idiot_ , he thought to himself. _Bella asked you to get one thing and you fucked that up._

He patted down his jacket pockets, and then his pants pockets. Aside from his keys, they were empty. _Fuck! You left your goddamn cell phone at home._

Paul was about to give up and go home when he walked past the wall of flowers again. He couldn't remember what Bella wanted in this moment, but he did remember that she had loved the red roses he'd bought her a little while back. He had seen Leah that night, and since Leah was always, always right, she'd managed to make him feel awful about himself. He'd been ignoring Bella at the time, but when he had gotten her those roses, it hadn't made everything better, but it had fixed a couple things on the spot.

He knew she'd be mad this time, but this would have to mend a couple things right on the spot this time, too.

He got the prettiest bouquet of roses and as he was about to check out, he noticed giant glowing numbers behind the cashier, a jaded co-worker that he didn't particularly like. The CashBall prize was huge this time around—250 million dollars. The winning numbers would be announced on TV tonight.

 _What the hell,_ Paul thought.

In addition to the roses, Paul bought a lottery ticket and headed home.

* * *

Initially, Paul had expected Bella to be rather livid with him. Then he remembered that she wasn't Leah, but he found himself caught in the crossfire, anyway.

She just looked him up and down when she realized that all he had bought for her were roses. She was more annoyed than angry and at first, she tried to blame it on the hormones, but even Paul knew that would be bullshit.

Her voice was low and calm when she spoke. "I asked you for literally one thing," she said, "and you couldn't even get that right."

He didn't say anything at all, but his internal monologue was going wild. _Fuck, you brought this on yourself,_ he thought. _You_ _played yourself._

"I asked for soup," she said slowly. "You know, so we don't have to starve? You bought fucking _roses_. I already told you that flowers are cheesy."

It was like she had completely missed his romantic gesture.

 _Dumb-ass_ , he thought to himself. _Romance doesn't feed the baby._

All he could do was offer her the roses, but when he stuck them out, she swatted them away. They landed on the living room carpet, falling out of the wrapping and making a mess.

They hadn't been wildly expensive, but she immediately regretted what she'd done. She quickly squatted down and started to pick them up again, wishing she hadn't lashed out over virtually nothing ( _but still, everything_ ).

He also squatted down and began to help her pick up the roses. He suddenly paused, staring at her, and she peered up at him, tucking a few strands of hair behind her ear.

"What?" she asked him.

"I wanna marry you."

She just furrowed her eyebrows. "You forgot to buy soup when I clearly asked you to," she reminded him. "You'd probably forget to show up to the altar."

"No, Bella," he said. "I just wanna marry you. For real."

She just picked up the flowers and stood up, making her way to the kitchen to find a vase. "You're so dumb sometimes," she said. "No."

Paul followed her to the kitchen. She found something that would make do a vase and began to fill it with tap water.

"Why?" he asked her.

"You're aware that 'no' doesn't mean 'convince me,' right?"

Paul sighed. "I'm not _that_ dumb, but I know you'd be up to the challenge. Would you marry me, Bella? Please?"

The last time someone had asked her to marry her, they had ended on ugly terms.

Then again, Paul wasn't Edward. He was nowhere near him.

"Why can't we just live together forever?" she asked, dumping the roses into the vase.

"'Cause forever just ain't long enough, baby girl," he replied. "And besides, I don't want our kid being some bastard."

"Were you a bastard?" Bella wondered.

He shook his head. "Parents divorced, though."

"I was almost a bastard," she said. "My parents got divorced, anyway. See?"

"See what?"

"You don't have to worry about divorce if you never get married in the first place."

He just laughed. "Bella, you're hurting my soul here. Don't you wanna do _one_ thing in order?"

She dramatically dropped her jaw. " _You_ care about order?" she asked. "What have we been doing out of order, then?"

"Well, uh, we conceived before we even really knew each other."

She shook her head. "That's inaccurate. We very well established my middle name at that gas station where you almost blew us up because you felt compelled to smoke a cigarette. What's yours, again?"

"Don't have one."

She smiled. "I already knew that. See? We know each other."

"C'mon, Bella, why do you hate the idea of marrying me so much?"

"It's not so much about marrying _you,_ " she clarified. "Marriage itself is a piece of paper. An _expensive_ piece of paper with tons of legalities to go through."

Paul then removed his wallet from his pocket and took out the lottery ticket. He held it up. "The CashBall numbers drop on TV tonight," he told her.

"So you wasted two dollars on a lottery ticket when you could have bought two cans of soup?" she asked, an eyebrow raised. "You know, marrying you _really_ doesn't sound like a good idea now."

"If I became a millionaire," he said, "would you marry me?"

She glanced at the ticket and then shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"God, Paul, I'll marry you," she said, exasperated. "If you become a millionaire, I'll marry you—someday."

"That's all I wanted." Then he leaned in to kiss her, but she took a step back.

"Might throw up again," she warned him.

"Damn, okay then."

She left the kitchen and found some shoes to slip on. Then she grabbed her jacket and picked his keys up off the coffee table.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"To the store," she replied. "You're cute, but not cute enough to make me forget about the soup."

"Don't crash my car again," he called to her.

She just smirked at him. "I'd only crash it if you were in it," she said playfully.

* * *

Paul was sitting on the couch with Bella later that night. She had gotten her soup, so she was content. She had her legs laid over Paul's, and life wasn't amazing, but it sure as hell wasn't awful, either.

They were watching the news, and just as Bella had predicted, the media was all over the murder of Jasper Cullen, who was commonly (and repeatedly) referred to as a University of Washington chemistry major who grew up in a "loving, supportive" household. The only pictures they showed of him were ones where he wore a cap and gown. They touched upon his parents' reputable occupations—a doctor and an interior designer—as well as Edward's status as a Dartmouth pre-med student and Emmett's status as a respected lawyer in Port Angeles.

Paul scoffed, and it was like he could read Bella's mind. "Some white boy gets killed for fucking with the wrong people and the whole country is a mess, acting like his family's the Obamas," he said. "Have it be an Indian in the same situation and watch nobody make a sound."

Bella nodded. "It's just dumb."

"Or better yet," Paul added, "make sure to call that Indian a thug. Don't even get a decent picture of him, either, 'cause Indians don't graduate high school, right?"

"You said Jasper was fucking with the wrong people," she said. "Did you know him?"

"He used to help the chop shop a little," he replied, "but he wasn't shit. I didn't know him too well. He must have been a real piece of shit, though. The kid got shot right on his front porch."

Bella tried to act like she was hearing this for the first time.

Suddenly, Edward Cullen's face appeared on the screen. Bella began to boil with anger. Edward, looking as awful as she imagined him, spoke of his brother to a reporter, saying how he wished he could have protected him.

Bella sighed deeply. "He's always been so full of shit," she said.

"Is that—?"

She nodded, her eyes still on the screen. "That's my ex. Would you mind turning on something else?"

"Yeah, fuck all this." He switched the channel. _Family Feud_ was on.

"Thanks, babe."

"You're welcome, babe."

It actually turned out to be the end of the _Family Feud_ episode. The credits quickly scrolled down the screen, and the news seemed to be back on, but it was because the lottery numbers were about to be announced. _Priorities._

Paul took the ticket back out of his wallet and peered down at it. The numbers were being announced agonizingly slow by a local reporter as if people actually won these things.

Paul matched the first two numbers and he didn't freak out that much. Then he matched the next two and his heart began to race a little. When he matched the fifth number, he thought he was dreaming.

Then they announced the sixth number.

His ticket was a perfect match.

He gasped, jumping up from the couch. "Holy shit," he breathed. " _Holy_ shit."

"How many numbers did you match?" Bella asked, slightly disturbed by how fast he had gotten up.

He showed her the ticket. "All six of them."

She took the ticket from him. "No way," she said quietly. She looked down at the numbers, and then back at the TV screen. Then she checked again. And again. She gave the slip of paper back to him.

"Paul," she whispered, her eyes wide. "You just won 250 million dollars."

" _We_ just won 250 million dollars," he corrected her.

"We just won _250 million fucking dollars._ "

Paul scrambled to the junk drawer in the kitchen in search of a pen. He scratched it against a stained napkin until it worked, and with a shaky hand, he signed the back of the lottery ticket and put it back into his wallet. It was his. _It was fucking his._

He went back to the living room and took Bella into his arms, kissing her hard.

"We're gonna be alright, baby girl," he told her in her ear. "We won't have to worry anymore."

She smiled up at him. "So what are we gonna do now, millionaire?" she asked.

He shot her his devilish grin. "We're gonna make sure you hold up to your promise."

* * *

The number-one, entirely unspoken, universal rule for winning the lottery was that the winners were not supposed to brag about it. They were not supposed to run off and tell everyone they knew. They were supposed to remain composed and quiet. They were supposed to live life as normal as they possibly could for a short time.

Paul had never been one to follow the rules, but this all changed tonight. He didn't want to wreck this, and neither did Bella. Not for the sake of their kid.

With some of the money that they had been saving up for emergencies for a month now, Paul and Bella headed out to the only pawn shop nearby, in Port Angeles. The shop closed late, and when they arrived, it was as active as ever. The lights were bright and loud music was being played over the speakers.

Bella squeezed Paul's hand as they walked over to the jewelry counters, and when she looked up at him, she saw the determination right on his face.

"Whatcha lookin' at?" he asked her as he stared down at the various rings.

"I love you," she told him softly.

"I love you, too," he replied. "Now let's get you something pretty."

It turned out that the only engagement ring they could afford for her right now was an unpretty, cheap one with a thin band and a tiny diamond. Bella didn't care, though. As they exited the store, she couldn't keep her eyes off her left hand. Paul promised to get her something better in a little while, and while she definitely believed him, she didn't even care. She was happy.

With his left hand on the steering wheel of his car, the busted little blue one, and his right hand squeezing Bella's thigh, Paul drove them back to La Push. Some indie pop singer with a smoky voice crooned over the radio, and it just felt right.

At some point, Bella unbuckled her seat belt and leaned over in the car so she could be closer to Paul. She kissed him multiple times on the corner of his mouth and then wrapped her arm around his stomach. Then she nuzzled her head into his shoulder, closed her eyes, and just _breathed._ She breathed in fresh beginnings, and she breathed out the ugly endings.

The badlands didn't feel so bad now.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Hopefully, I'll slow down a little with my updating speed. I'm just really nervous about taking a long hiatus this far into the story because of time-consuming things irl. Bear with me. The next chapter should be pretty long, which is a good thing. For those who have been missing Leah (including me), you guys are in luck._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	72. LXXII

_**A/N:**_ _I don't own Twilight. This chapter features a little bit of everyone, which explains the length. It should honestly be cut in half, but I just couldn't do it. This chapter also features some nice quirks about the characters, as well as some drama. I had a good time writing it._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXXII.**

 _love is not just a verb_  
 _it's you looking in the mirror_

* * *

Paul was able to go a week without telling anybody about his winnings. He didn't want to brag—he just wanted to figure out what to do next. On his next day off, he decided he needed to call the smartest person he knew: Leah.

It was early and Bella had just been dropped off at her job when he dialed a number that he hoped still worked. But from one shitty flip phone to another, it was perfect.

Paul had to call Leah's cell phone twice before she even answered. He was pretty sure she had answered for a second the first time only to hang up again.

Her voice wasn't even tired when she finally picked up, though. She actually sounded sort of livid. It took him by surprise while it really shouldn't have.

"Who _is_ this?" she asked.

"Damn, Lee, you deleted my number?"

"Oh my God, hold on."

Paul thought he heard her say, "Give me a minute" to him, but her tone was too distant and _way_ too nice for that to be directed at him. _Who the hell is that?_ he wondered.

It had been a moment before Leah returned to the phone. "What do you want?" she asked him. Her voice was quiet, but not quiet enough to negate her obvious annoyance.

"I wanna talk to you," he told her, and he could swear he saw her rolling her eyes through the phone.

"Well, guess what?" she asked impatiently.

"No, no, in person. It's kinda important. Is Kim there?"

"She's working out."

"Do you know when she'll be back?"

"Give me forty-five minutes. Oh, and bring me a coffee."

"A coffee?" he asked. "Why?"

"You called me up at nine in the morning on my one day off from school _and_ work just to say you wanna talk. Bring Kim one, too."

"I didn't wake either one of you up," he pointed out.

"You said it's important, right? Just bring us each a coffee."

Paul sighed. "Shit, okay. Forty-five minutes. Two coffees."

"Cream and sugar," she added. "Just for one of them."

"Cream and sugar," he repeated. "I'll see you then."

"Okay, bye." She hung up before he could say _bye_ back.

* * *

Paul was over in forty-two minutes instead of forty-five, but to make up for the time, he found himself parked meters away from Kim and Leah's condo, waiting for the only available parking spot to open up. He wasn't looking to get anyone in trouble for parking in the "incorrect" spot, which he found to be absolute bullshit. The people in charge of the condos were real sticklers about guest parking, and the only parking spot allowed for guests of Kim and Leah's condo was currently occupied by a vaguely familiar, red Volkswagen Rabbit. He ran through all the times he'd seen the car in his head and then finally remembered it belonged to—

 _Jacob._

Being trailed by Leah, Jacob Black was walking down the stairs and over to his car. Paul really didn't know why he was so surprised to see them together, but he was nonetheless.

Jacob began to get into the car, but Leah pulled him by the sleeve of his sweatshirt. He leaned in and kissed her. Paul wanted to die—it looked like something out of a cheesy movie—but he couldn't look away. He just didn't know why, either. Jacob squeezed Leah's ass and Paul, parked relatively far away like a creeper, couldn't take his eyes off them.

It was like when they had talked in the Thriftway, except Leah and Paul had switched roles. Even though he didn't want her back, he couldn't help but wonder what Jacob could give her that _he_ had lacked. He wanted her to be happy, he really did, but the thought of his inadequacy burned constantly in the back of his mind when he thought of her and Jacob. Paul knew that he had treated Leah badly, and he knew that he had played her, but how bad could it have really been?

 _Really bad, dumb-ass,_ he told himself. _That's why she's with him instead of you right now._

Paul had witnessed probably the longest parting ever once Jacob backed out of the space and drove away. When Paul looked at Leah, who stared at Jacob until he was out of sight, she looked genuinely happy. Paul still loved Leah like family, of course, and while he loved her impeccable, classic, sharp attitude, he loved seeing her happy, too. She looked so happy in this moment, wearing pajamas at ten in the morning, watching her boyfriend drive away. Happiness was a good look on her, Paul could admit, but he still felt a pang of improper jealousy.

Leah began to make her way up the stairs, and then Paul swerved into the parking spot, tires squealing. She stopped in her tracks and turned around, smile long gone, and started to come down the stairs again.

Paul got out of his car and started to walk over to the passenger side. "Come get your coffee," he called to her.

"Cream and sugar in one of them?" she asked, taking the cardboard carrier from his hands.

"Just like you said."

"Nice, Lahote. I knew you could do it. C'mon, Kim just got back."

He followed her up to the fourth floor, making small-talk like they didn't even know each other. Once they got up there, though, he couldn't help but say, "So you've got yourself a revolving door of guys this morning, I see."

Leah snorted as she opened the front door. "Yeah, right," she said, letting them in. " _Jake's_ a guy; you're just a dog."

"How is Jacob, anyway?" he wondered.

They set the coffee cups down onto the dining table. "Why?" she challenged. "You know you don't give a fuck about him."

"Gotta make sure he's treating you right," he explained.

Leah just rolled her eyes to the moon and back. "You should just take your own advice and not worry about it," she told him. "And anyway, you're not my boyfriend, you're not my mother, and you're damn sure not my father."

"Okay," he replied, "but you've definitely called me 'daddy' before."

"That's irrelevant," she said. "And wildly inappropriate."

Kim suddenly entered the dining area, approaching Paul and Leah. She was fresh out of the shower and clad in a cotton bathrobe. "So what's so important?" she asked. "I mean, besides daddy issues."

"Morning, Kim," Paul said.

"Good morning, Paul." She pointed to the coffee cups. "Is one of those for me?"

Paul nodded, and Kim picked up a cup. She took a sip and immediately set it down, making a face. "Gross," she said. "That one's yours, Lee."

"Sorry," Paul told Kim. "She only asked for cream and sugar in one of them."

"Nah, it's cool. I take mine black."

"She's not with that frou-frou shit," Leah said to Paul, picking up the cup that Kim just set down, taking a sip. "So what's important?"

"I won the lottery."

Kim and Leah looked at each other and just about exploded with laughter.

"No, for real," Paul said. "Last week, I matched all six numbers on the CashBall."

"No way," Kim said. "It's impossible to even match, like, three numbers on those things."

"Well, I did." He took the signed ticket out of his wallet and handed it to Kim.

She looked at the numbers and quickly looked up the winning numbers for this CashBall prize on her cell phone. She glanced at the ticket again and handed it back to him.

"He matched all six of them?" Leah asked, her eyebrows raised.

Kim nodded, still looking at him. "You're one lucky motherfucker. So what do you need?"

"You know money, right?" he asked.

It was all she knew besides physical fitness and pop music. "Mm-hm."

"What do I do, then?"

"Well, first, you have to thank God that me and Lee aren't crazy," she told him, "'cause you can't just go telling everyone you won the lottery. That'll get you kidnapped—or killed."

"I've only told you guys," he assured her. "And Bella."

"Lucky bitch," Leah muttered.

"You're gonna need a team of legal and financial advisers," Kim told Paul, "but you're also gonna have to be quick about it. When you collect the money, the news will probably announce that some guy from La Push won, and after that, every one of your 'long lost cousins' is gonna be calling you up asking for shit."

"Okay, so how can I get these advisers?" Paul asked.

"I have some uncles over in Seattle that can hook you up," she replied, "but they like to work fast. If it's alright with them, we can head over there today and work something out with them."

"That's fine. What do you have uncles in Seattle for, though?"

"They're Tulalip. Dad's side."

"You're not full Quileute?" Paul asked incredulously, getting sidetracked.

"Paul, do you want her to call her uncles or not?" Leah asked before the topic of Kim's racial ambiguity could come up. "Because she totally can if you would just pay attention for two minutes."

Kim nodded.

"Yeah," Paul said. "Yeah. Call your uncles."

Kim and her coffee cup went to the other side of the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. She began to dial a number, and Leah and Paul retreated to the couch.

"Why'd you come to _us_ about this?" Leah asked him, her voice hushed.

"Easy—you two are the smartest people I know," he explained.

"That's real nice of you," she said sarcastically. "Usually, it's the millionaire who has to be sweet-talked."

"Multimillionaire," he corrected her. "What, you want something out of this?"

"I'm not gonna make a fool out of myself to get some of your money," she told him. "I'm not like that."

"I know. I would—I _could—_ help out your family. I mean, it's basically my family, too." He was careful not to mention the fact that Leah would be an aunt in a little while, and _not_ to Seth's kid.

"We're doing fine," Leah assured him. "Thanks, anyway."

"No problem. Just don't tell anyone about me winning, okay?"

"I'm the smartest person you know, remember?" she reminded him. He smiled in return.

Kim got off the phone. "Done," she called.

"That was quick," Leah said. She and Paul returned to the table.

"What's up, Bambi?" Paul asked.

"My Uncle Ron and Uncle Mo can meet with you today," she said. "He wants to talk with you and set some things up, and then we'll move on from there."

"Cool. Let's go." Paul got up from the couch, and then he paused. "Wait."

"What?" Leah asked.

"There's no guarantee that my car will make it to Seattle."

Kim got up from the table. "No one said you were driving," she said.

Leah bolted from the couch and went to the bedroom to quickly get dressed. Kim followed her and closed the door behind them. The condo was only so small, though, that Paul could still hear them.

"You didn't know about any of this?" Kim asked Leah.

"No way," Leah replied. "I was literally in the middle of getting my pussy eaten when he called me."

If Paul didn't need to figure out how to handle the money, he would have just up and left.

"Well, I guess we're going on a road trip," Kim said. "I'll need to get gas, though."

"Are you sure you wanna drive?"

"We both know you can't handle the aux cord and drive at the same time."

* * *

Within twenty minutes, Kim, Leah, and Paul were on the road to Seattle. Leah rode shotgun while Paul felt his legs being slowly crushed as he sat in the backseat of Kim's car.

The car ride from Forks to Seattle was long—about three-and-a-half hours since Kim preferred to _not_ break the law—but Kim and Leah remained hyped the entire time. Kim's phone was plugged in, and in between giving directions, it bumped the music that Kim and Leah had grown up on. The girls moved at the same time, in the same ways, as if they had routines to the various songs. They also belted the songs passionately, holding nothing back. It was all actually kind of funny, and it went on in a light spirit until a certain song came on.

They were both singing along until Leah abruptly paused the music.

"Is something wrong?" Kim asked.

"You're singing Beyoncé's part," Leah said. " _I'm_ Beyoncé."

"You've been Beyoncé since 1999. And the contemporary girl group did _not_ die so you could be Beyoncé all the time, Leah."

Leah just scoffed and played the song again. They both sang Beyoncé's part, and the road trip resumed.

Even though Paul had once claimed to hate the badlands and everyone in it for simply being boring, he wished he had stuck around long enough or gave enough effort to form a friendship similar to that of Leah and Kim's. They really were _best_ friends—they could insult each other one second only to laugh it off and continue singing 90s R &B songs the next. Bella was his best friend and his girlfriend all wrapped in one, but it wasn't the same.

Stuck in the backseat, Paul admired Leah and Kim's historical, everlasting friendship all the way to Seattle.

* * *

Getting his financial situation together in Seattle was easier than Paul had expected it to be, even if it took a while. Kim's uncles were cool about everything and made things simpler to understand. He had opened up a few accounts, created a timeline for the important things he would invest in, and made plans as to not going bankrupt. Paul found it nice to just be able to talk to other natives like it was nothing. They didn't make him feel any smaller or dumber than them, and he appreciated it.

They had spent practically an entire day in Seattle by the time they started to head back to Forks. They had to take a ferry back (just as they'd had to take a ferry there), and because the wait would be a while due to traffic, the three of them sat in the lounge. Paul just got off the phone with Bella, apologizing for not being detailed with her in his text messages—it had been a long, busy day that he would tell her about once he finally got home.

Earlier in the day when Paul had been in his meeting, collecting the lump sum, and going into another meeting, Kim and Leah had ventured off to see what downtown Seattle could offer them. They had also taken many aesthetically pleasing photos of each other with the city background. In the lounge of the ferry, they went through the pictures on Kim's phone now.

Leah pointed at a photo of Kim. "That one is flawless," she said. "Your hair looks so good there."

They swiped to another photo. Kim pointed at it. "This is the really good one of you that I was talking about," she said. "You really fucked it up here. This is, like, hood-rat glamor realness."

Leah smiled. "It is, huh?"

 _There she goes with that happiness again_ , Paul thought. _I can't be mad at her._

And he really couldn't be mad at her. She knew what love was. The good, real love. Love wasn't just hugs and kisses and pet names, and it sure as hell wasn't just sex. Love wasn't a mere noun at all, but it was more than a verb, too.

When Paul looked at Leah smiling at Kim, smiling at herself, smiling at Jacob, he realized that love was the capacity to look at one's self in the mirror. It was the capacity to search for what they liked about themselves in someone else, and to always remember the importance of self-respect.

The reason why Leah and Paul hadn't worked out was glaringly obvious to him now: he hadn't shown her anything remotely close to love. In fact, she had found it without him.

He couldn't even be mad.

* * *

The following day, Bella was stuffing her travel toothbrush and toothpaste in her purse as she returned from the bathroom at her job. She was nearing the end of her shift, and because she just couldn't deal with morning sickness in the morning, she made sure she was prepared to not have puke breath at all hours of the day.

Paul was supposed to pick her up soon, but when she went around the corner and looked up at the front desk, the man talking to her coworker, Angela, was not Paul. It was Edward, clad in a black suit.

It caught Bella completely off guard to see him, and she stumbled back. It would have been really embarrassing if anyone had seen her. All the kids had finally been picked up, and the only people left at the daycare were her, Angela, and of course, Edward.

Angela turned to Bella and waved at her. "It's about time you let me meet the lucky guy," she said to Bella teasingly. "You had me thinking the father was a mystery. I'm so excited for you two."

"Thank you," Edward said courteously.

It just now occurred to Bella that while she had told her co-workers that she was pregnant and engaged, she had never actually introduced them to Paul. Angela mistook Edward for Paul, and Bella wanted to throw up all over again.

"Oh, um," Bella began slowly. "This—this isn't Paul."

Things became as awkward as Bella expected them to be.

She turned to Edward. "Can I talk to you outside?" she asked him.

"Of course," he said. They began to head to the parking lot, and he turned to wave goodbye to Angela as if this was even remotely funny.

Edward just laughed and laughed and _laughed_ when they made it to the parking lot.

"You're a fucking psycho," she told him angrily.

"You're _pregnant_ ," he said, still laughing a bit too hard for someone whose brother had just been murdered. "I always told you to stay away from the rez, but you really are an idiot. You're fucking _pregnant_. Even better, your coworker thinks _I'm_ the father." He was doubled over laughing now.

"I should call the fucking cops on you for popping up at my job," she said. "You had no right to do that."

"What, to visit a daycare?" he asked, gaining his composure. "Get over yourself. I was in town—I thought I would pay a visit."

"Don't you have some reporter to be crying to?" she asked, her arms crossed over her chest. "Why the hell are you continuing to harass me instead?"

"Jasper's funeral was today," he informed her. "It was a big production. I talked with my brother, Emmett—you remember him? Anyway, he thinks it was an Indian who killed Jasper."

"What makes him so sure about that?" she asked. "Besides the fact that all of you are racists."

"Jasper was always involved in sketchy situations," Edward told her. "I bailed him out, too, when you and your girls were all in trouble in Venice."

The Venice gig seemed like ages ago. Bella didn't even feel like the same person.

"So tell me one more time," Edward continued, "are you _sure_ you don't know who could have killed my brother?"

"Leave that to the police," she said. "I don't know anything or anyone having to do with this." Bella tried to turn away, but Edward grabbed her tightly by the arms and closed the space between them. His breath smelled of whiskey, and he began to question her again.

Paul's car suddenly came speeding into the parking lot of the daycare. He shot out of the car and shoved Edward away.

"Wow, if this ain't the guy from TV," Paul said, pulling his fist back to sock him in the face.

Bella jumped between them. "Paul, stop!" she yelled. "Don't do this."

"Oh, so _you're_ the father?" Edward asked, regaining his balance.

"Damn right, I'm the father," Paul replied.

"Paul, calm down," Bella told him, her hands on his chest.

"Get the fuck outta here," Paul hollered at Edward. "You wanna beat and rape my fiancee and then have the _nerve_ to show your face around here? I should fuck your whole world up."

Before Edward could even respond, Bella pushed Paul back with all the force in her body. "Stop!" she shouted. "Paul, don't make this into a scene."

"He made it into a scene first," he said, the anger clear in his eyes and his clenched fists. Then he screamed at Edward, "What the fuck do you _want_?"

"I want to know how the hell shot my brother," Edward replied, "since Bella just seems to be protecting everybody around here."

"Look," Paul said, his voice more calm, "I don't know who did that to your brother, and I sure as hell don't even _care_ , but if you wanna keep bothering me and my fiancee, then I'll make sure the same thing happens to you."

"Let's go home, Paul," Bella said quietly.

Paul just kept his eyes on Edward as he and Bella headed back to his car. Paul spat hard and fast right on to Edward's shoes. "Fuckin' pussy," he muttered.

Edward gave him the finger, and Paul drove away.

* * *

Just a few minutes away, Quil was trying really hard not to fall asleep at his register at the Thriftway. Embry had spoken to his boss, so Quil worked two jobs now. Real jobs. He spent his days at the Thriftway and his nights at the diner/coffee shop in Port Angeles. The exhaustion was hitting him hard, but at least he was off the streets.

The entire store was pretty dead until a tall ginger wearing a black suit and nice shoes with fresh spit on them came storming in like a maniac. Quil recognized Edward immediately—the guy had been one of his first and most loyal weed customers—and then he froze up.

 _I killed that guy's brother_ , he thought. _I killed that guy's fucking brother._

Edward went straight to the spirits aisle of the store. Quil dreaded his return. Quil was one of two people with cash registers right now, and he didn't even know where his co-worker was at the moment. He quickly took off his name tag and chucked it to the side of the store, just so Edward wouldn't recognize him by name.

Quil's heart raced in his chest once Edward came out of the aisle, a bottle of whiskey in hand. He marched over to Quil's register, and Quil swore to God that he would never do anything bad ever again as long as he got to live right now. Yes, he had killed Jasper, but to be killed at his job would be downright awful. What would his mom think?

 _What would my mom think?_

Edward didn't even greet Quil. He hardly looked him in the eyes. He just presented him an ID that looked fake (Quil had one just like it) and paid for the bottle. The receipt took an agonizingly long time to print, and Edward became so impatient that he just left the store without it.

Quil's heart didn't slow down until Edward was totally out of sight.

He was the luckiest bastard in the entire world.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	73. LXXIII

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. So I know this seems counterintuitive, but the time in between updates for this story will be longer now than they have been in the past (meaning a new chapter will be posted maybe once or twice a week rather than every 2 days). Due to real life demands, this will likely be the deal for the rest of the story. There are going to be 88 chapters in total. I'm so sorry that this is happening so close to the conclusion of the story._

 _I'd like to give a special shoutout to those who have taken the time to review and provide thoughtful comments. It's nice to know I'm not doing this alone, and I really do take some feedback into account while writing the story. There have been many changes from the original plan of this story, and you probably can't see them, but some of them are in direct response to questions and comments provided, and they're definitely in the story for the better. Thank you!_

 _In recent Static times: Bella got pregnant, Quil murdered Jasper, Paul won the lottery, Edward has been threatening Bella, Jacob and Leah have been going strong, Paul finally got over Leah (kind of), and Leah and Kim's friendship has been, of course, A1._

 _So here is chapter 73. It turned out different than I originally planned, which is why it took 9 days rather than the usual one and a half, but I'm happy with the changes. The chapter features a few different things (crude language, social commentary, big ideas, artsy little parallels that only a dorky writer like me would care about - all that good stuff). Thanks for keeping up._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXXIII.**

 _it's a love story for the new age, for the six page_  
 _we're on a quick, sick rampage_

* * *

Just a few nights later, Sunday, Leah had Kim in a near headlock as she attempted to apply gel eyeliner on the latter girl. Kim's music bumped from her Bluetooth speaker and everything just felt right.

"It's really not that big of a deal," Kim said, trying to back away from the bathroom counter. "It's just a couple of lines on my eyelids."

Leah tightened her grip on Kim's hair. "No, no," she argued. "I saw this on YouTube."

Kim sighed. "I'm pretty sure Jillian won't—"

Leah stopped, her eyes wide. Then she picked up Kim's phone and paused the music. "You said you were going out with your coworkers tonight," she said. "And you _never_ call them by their individual names."

Kim shrugged her shoulders and tried not to smile. "Whoops."

"You didn't even tell me you were going on a _date_ , what the fuck!"

"It's not that big of a deal," Kim repeated. "We're really just gonna order takeout and get wine-drunk in her apartment."

"Hmm, I see. Who exactly is Jillian again?"

Kim couldn't hold her smile back any longer. "The cute one who works at the coffee shop," she said. "Blonde, dimples, nice ass, Gemini."

"God, she sounds perfect for you," Leah said. "If anyone can come between you and your coffee, I guess it's serious."

"My order isn't that hard, anyway."

"Yeah, but you never go on takeout and wine dates with _me_."

Kim rolled her eyes, a trait that the girls now shared equally. They had always been best friends, but living together really made them closer whether they were aware of it or not.

"So are you gonna spend the night with her?" Leah wondered.

"Yeah, probably. Drunk driving isn't exactly safe. I also don't want to hear you and Jacob all night. He's a good guy, but—"

"I know. Just be careful, okay?"

"I know, Lee."

"No, really. That's my best friend Jillian's fucking with."

"You can't fight anyone who has the potential to wrong me, you know," Kim reminded her.

"No," Leah agreed, "but that's never stopped me before."

"So aggressive," Kim mumbled. "So is Jacob spending the night?"

"Yeah, except he's running..." She glanced down at Kim's phone. "Ten minutes late. You think he's cheating on me?"

Kim smiled. "Don't kill him. And besides, him cheating with anyone would be like going from a solid 9 to a negative 2."

The doorbell rang, and Kim rushed out of the bathroom, phone in hand. She quickly grabbed her purse from the living room and ran out of the condo. "Bye, Lee!" she called.

The front door slammed shut, and Leah just turned back to the bathroom mirror. She leaned forward against the counter, applying eyeliner. She was getting kind of good at this. "Bye, Kim," she muttered to the mirror.

The doorbell suddenly rang again, and Leah just knew that Kim had forgotten something. Probably her keys. Leah opened the door and was surprised to see Jacob. She'd thought that he'd decided within the last ten minutes to not show up. But when she saw him, clad in a sweatshirt and jeans like always but still looking damn good, all she could think was, _Why do I never expect him to come through?_

"Hey," he said.

She smiled. "Hey." Then she looked down at the plastic shopping bags in his hands. "I thought we were gonna go out for food."

He entered the condo and took the groceries into the kitchen. "Me, too," he agreed, "but then I realized I'm broke and tired of pizza."

She helped him take the food out of the bags. "That's fair," she said. "So you're making spaghetti?"

"Yep. Homemade sauce recipe. Family secret."

"Oh, yeah, Ragu?"

Jacob chuckled. "'Course."

The vibe of the evening remained light as they cooked dinner—or as Leah observed since burning water was a very real possibility for her. They later sat on the rug in the living room and it didn't feel too forced.

"This is so good," Leah said. "Who taught you how to cook like this?"

"My dad. He'll tell you the sauce is a family secret, too."

"Mm-hm. Sure."

"How do you even survive not knowing how to cook?" he asked.

"I can make Ramen noodles and toast perfectly fine, thank you," she replied. "But I don't know. Kim can cook—like, really well. My mom did a lot of the cooking at home, too. I guess I never realized me and Seth would be screwed for life. Well, _he'll_ be okay. Bella can cook—kind of."

"Wait, what does Bella have to do with any of this?" he asked, genuinely confused.

"Oh, God, I totally forgot to tell you," she said. "My mom and Charlie are engaged."

"Holy shit, since when?"

"About a month ago. I should have told you, but things have just been… super busy."

"It's okay," he said, now less confused but more surprised. "That's crazy, though."

"Yeah." She trailed off. "How've you been, Jake? I miss you since the last time we saw each other."

"Since what, a couple days ago?"

Leah nodded and made her eyes all wide. "I've been a wreck since we parted. I haven't been eating. Haven't been sleeping. I could only sit in front of my window and helplessly wait for you to come back as sad indie music played in the background."

He laughed—hard. "You're too much."

She smiled. "Am I?"

He leaned in, and his voice was soft and low. "Way too much," he murmured.

She carefully traced her fingers along his strong, sturdy jaw and shut her eyes as she kissed him. She tried to feel all of him, use her sense of touch to create pictures in her mind so the essence of them—Jake and Lee and nobody else—could last forever. They both knew that in their world, things were so prone to change. Life around here could be mundane, and then it could be wild, and then it could be mundane again. Things changed. People changed. It was a lot to keep up with.

Leah had never been so good with change, and neither had Jacob. That was why they worked together, though. She was like water, capable of being everywhere but in different forms. She was overpowering, but she tried to convince herself that it was only a security mechanism. He was like earth, grounded and strong and always sure about what he wanted. He didn't mind being overpowered.

Within minutes, she guided him to her bed where she overpowered him, naturally. He was right—she was too much. She was too much in every way, but it was what he needed.

Or what he'd _thought_ he needed.

Prior to tonight, Leah and Jacob had planned on not having sex for a while, as if that really meant anything. But based on their previous relationships and how quickly they had jumped into sex ("you know," Leah had said, "the real shit—intercourse"), they had decided that taking things slow would probably be best for them.

With Jacob's weight on top of her tonight, Leah wondered what had changed.

She could applaud his foreplay skills anytime and any day, but when it came down to "the real shit," Jacob didn't stand a chance. Leah didn't want to feel regretful because she really did like him and knew that their relationship should not and _would not_ thrive on sex, but when she realized that he was just about at the edge and she wasn't even close, the feeling began to dawn on her.

Jacob came sooner than Leah would have preferred, and she felt like she was sixteen again. Her attitude was about to go back four years, too, but she was grown.

And besides—Jacob felt bad enough for the both of them.

As they cleaned up, he kept apologizing. "Shit, Lee, I'm sorry," he would tell her. "I fucked up. I fucked up."

"It's fine," she told him as she shoved the sheets into the washing machine. She wasn't even lying. "I must have been doing something right."

He just wouldn't quit. "It's just that it was our first time together and—"

"Jake, it's _fine_ ," she repeated. "It's something we've gotta work on. _I_ have an attitude and _you_ nut fast. We're even."

His voice was quiet. "I know I'm not really… what you're used to," he said. "I mean, I'm not Paul."

She crossed her arms and just peered up at him. "What does he have to do with anything?"

"The other day, when I came over really early in the morning, I came back later to see you. No one was answering the door and your phone went straight to voicemail, but I saw your car _and_ Paul's car in the parking lot."

 _Shit_ , Leah thought.

"Are you still seeing him?" he asked her.

"Jake, you're trippin'," she told him. "Me going from you to Paul is like going from a solid 9 to a negative 2."

"But you were with him before."

Even though Paul didn't mean that much to Leah now, she couldn't just tell Jacob about the lottery. It wouldn't be right, and she always kept her word. Even people like Paul deserved that.

"I feel like that's not the real issue here," she replied.

"There are many issues here," he countered.

"There _weren't_ ," she corrected him, her attitude kicking in, "but since you wanted there to be an issue so bad, I guess now we have a fucking issue."

His mood was a lot more temperate than hers, but she could feel the tension in his voice. It filled the entire condo. "Then what is the real issue?" he asked. "C'mon, try me."

"You know what you are, Jake?" she asked. "You're insecure, and I'm not even talking about what just happened. You're so fucking insecure in how I feel about you. It's like you don't believe me."

He couldn't even fight it—that was how insecure he was. She didn't like turning the focus of the conversation around, but because it was true, she couldn't stop herself. She could read right through him, anyway, since she knew him better than he knew himself.

"I fucking _love_ you," she went on, "but you won't even give the idea of me loving you a chance because you have such little self-worth. It makes me sick, Jake. Paul doesn't have anything that I want. Shit, your dick is _way_ bigger than his, yet you worry about me still seeing him as if he hasn't fucked me over a billion times? As if even _thinking_ about him isn't a mental trigger? How bad do you hate yourself, Jake?"

He didn't answer.

"You've made me feel so much happier," she told him, "but you're still hopeless. You're damaged goods, Jacob. You have so much potential to treat me _and_ yourself so well, but you just throw it all away because you'd rather spend your time feeling sorry for yourself."

"If I'm so damaged," he replied, "then you know _exactly_ why. Leah, I've been through shit—so have you. We're the same. If you'd get your head out of your ass and see that, then—"

"We are _not_ the same," she said sternly. "The difference between me and you is that _I_ know who the fuck I am and _I_ know my worth. _You_ don't even know where to start."

"You're so self-centered," he told her, and she knew he had lost.

"Who the fuck _else_ am I supposed to be centered on?" she demanded. "Don't get it twisted and don't hurt yourself, Jake."

"What, was that a threat?" he asked her, his voice the angriest she'd heard it. "Am I supposed to start _accepting_ myself because you wanna talk all tough?"

"No," she said calmly, "but I can easily see you running off to go fuck some self-loathing bitch who needs you to hold her hair back while she vomits and doesn't mind how fast you come."

He went back to the bedroom, put his shoes back on, and headed to the front door.

"You're too much," he muttered.

"Am I?" she mumbled sarcastically.

He just left the condo without looking back.

* * *

Leah stayed up late that night, curled up on the couch and watching _Selena_ on DVD. It didn't feel the same without Kim, but like an answer to her silent prayers, Kim quietly entered the condo. She slipped off her boots and slumped onto the couch with Leah, and it felt normal.

"I thought you were spending the night with Jillian," Leah said.

"I thought Jacob was spending the night with you," Kim said.

"I guess neither of us can ever have a good night."

Kim snorted. "If I have a bad time, you have a bad time. We're a package deal."

Leah smiled in response to that—they really were soul mates. Maybe Kim was all she would ever need. Then she turned the movie down. "What happened to you tonight?" she asked.

"Never trust a big butt and a smile," the other girl quoted.

"Words to live by. But for real, what happened?"

"Nothing much. I just need to stop falling for people who say one nice thing to me. It's exhausting."

"Uh-huh, honey," Leah agreed. "Me, too."

"What happened with you?"

"Jacob and I had sex when it wouldn't have killed us to wait." And that wasn't even the half of it.

"But haven't you—?"

"No, we did the real shit this time," Leah clarified. "But he came so fast it wasn't even funny. I guess my pussy's too bomb or something."

"Uh-huh, honey."

Leah laughed. "I kinda bitched him out afterward, though," she continued.

"That's not something to bitch someone out over," Kim said. "You still could have found a way to finish yourself off."

"No, it wasn't over that. He asked me if I'm still seeing Paul because of when his car was over here the other day when we drove out to Seattle."

"What did you tell him, then?"

"Not the truth."

"That explains why you're sitting here watching _Selena._ Did you not tell him the truth because of the lottery?"

"Yeah."

"Why are you protecting Paul?" Kim wondered. "Why do you owe him anything?"

"It's his business," Leah said. "I didn't wanna expose that."

"Jake's your boyfriend, though."

Leah sighed. "I know, I know. But in the end, I was going off about how little he thinks of himself, and that part is true. Like, he really _is_ damaged goods. I thought I knew how to deal with that, but I don't. It just pisses me off that I could tell him I love him and that he's so amazing and that he's done so much for me, but he wouldn't hear me. He thinks he's undeserving and I hate that."

"I think you mean well, Lee," Kim said. "I feel like you just have an issue with telling it like that to him because you can get so riled up. I get that you don't wanna be fake about anything, but that doesn't mean you have to be a bitch."

"I guess I _was_ being a bitch about it," Leah admitted.

"Quit being a bitch about the wrong things," Kim told her. "It's not worth it. Better yet, give some of that bitchiness to _me_. I sure needed it tonight before it got all fucked up."

"You still never really said what happened tonight."

"I wasn't even that wine-drunk," Kim began, "but I slept with Jillian. I felt bad about it afterward, and even told her that—since I'm good at trusting anybody who's nice to me, of course—and then she called me a bad feminist."

" _What_?"

Kim nodded. "She told me that I should feel so _lucky_ and so _empowered_ to be able to sleep with another girl in this day and age—as if gay girls became a thing just this year." She rolled her eyes.

"She said you should feel lucky to sleep with her," Leah echoed. "Did she…?"

"No, no, I definitely said yes," Kim clarified. "I just shouldn't have."

"God, I am so fucking sorry, Kim."

"It's fine. It really is. I just fucking hate how sex is treated now by all these 'good' feminists." Kim was actually angry; she usually didn't cuss this much. "It's counterproductive. Good feminists like Jillian are always like, 'Be a ho and do whatever and whoever you want, whenever you want,' but that's not the point. Bad feminists like me still get fucked over. We still end up having negative feelings about sex, and suddenly _we're_ the enemies because we're not empowered by it. _We're_ the oppressors. Jillian straight up told me tonight that there has never been a better time to be gay than right now as if I'm white. Then I told her I'm actually bi, and she fucking called me a slut for it."

Leah's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "She's fucking crazy!" she said. "She's no better than Jared."

"She's _no_ better than Jared," Kim repeated. "She's just like him."

"She guilted you into having sex and then called you a slut when you gave in."

"Exactly. And bi girls are called sluts left and right. I can't win and I'm tired."

Leah nodded, and she wished that nothing bad could ever happen to Kim again. She was always getting the shit end of the stick, whether it was from guys _or_ girls. And even worse, she was a good person. She was a great person. She was the sweetest person Leah had ever known. All of Kim's romantic failures truly proved that karma didn't exist.

Leah looked down at Kim's hands, and she saw the _trust no one_ tattoo on the side of her left one.

 _Good choice,_ she thought.

* * *

Home and work life had remained relatively the same for Paul and Bella, except they talked more. It was just a little more conversation here, a little more conversation there. Their communication skills still weren't the best, but it worked out for them, even for the bigger topics. The bigger topics usually came as they were getting ready for their day at work. It was like nothing had changed.

The following morning, Bella asked Paul where he wanted his money to go if something were to happen to him.

"And I'm not gonna try to kill you," she added as she began to get dressed for work. "Promise."

"Fair enough," he said. "The money's going to you and the kid. Easy. I also wanna give some money to my mom. I'll probably buy her a car or a new place. Sue and Charlie should get a new house, too."

"Giving everybody a new house is how lottery winners end up broke," she warned him.

He zipped up his work pants. "I've just got a lot of giving back to do," he said. "It's only right."

"You and your order," Bella mumbled. "Is there anything you wanna do immediately? Like, right now?"

"I wanna blow off work," he admitted. "I wanna go out and buy you a nice ring. And you know what? Pretty soon, I wanna go on a road trip next month for my birthday."

"That sounds like fun."

"Yeah, I want all of us to go. All ten of us. The whole squad."

"Okay, you lost me there."

"Baby girl," he began.

She crossed her arms. "Don't even start. We have priorities and a road trip with eight other people who don't even like me that much isn't one of them. You know what I want."

"You wanna get a house," he said. "I know."

"It's important," she told him. "I love you and I've grown to love Forks and La Push, but I can't have our baby here. We need to be somewhere more… stable."

"Forks ain't never hurt nobody."

She smiled. "Your dedication to spouting out shit is amazing."

"Then we'll get a house," he told her. "We can start looking now and settle down in August or September."

"August," she corrected.

"August," he confirmed, "but the road trip will be our last ride before we've gotta start getting our shit together."

"You don't even like the other eight people we know," she reminded him.

"Baby girl, they're family." Since his trip to Seattle with Leah and Kim, he had been thinking a lot about how much his friends—or at least the people he'd grown up with—meant to him. In the end, they meant a lot. He wasn't too cool or hard to admit that.

"And besides," he added with a smirk on his face, "We've gotta see the entirety of this great country _some_ time. It's just not the same on TV."

She just looked up at him, her arms still crossed. "I guess we can go on this trip," she said, "but only if you leave the chop shop for good."

He put his hands up. "Say no more."

"And you're gonna have to recruit everybody," she told him. "Good luck getting eight other people to agree to drive around the whole country with us."

"Don't worry about it."

* * *

Bella had forgotten about Paul's idea by her lunch break, and she was genuinely surprised when he called her saying that everybody else was down to go on a cross-country road trip with them.

"I guess you really love your friends," she said. "You're so persuasive."

"My friends really love not having to pay for anything but gas and food," he replied.

"So everyone's just gonna drop their lives for a couple weeks to come with us?"

"It's a vacation, not a chore," he reminded her. "And a bunch of them have spring break next month, anyway."

"Do you have a route for this trip?"

"You know I do. It's kinda perfect. I'll show you."

"Mm, efficient," she said. "You're serious about this, huh?"

He laughed. "Yeah. I'll call you back later. I gotta meet with some guys from Craigslist."

"For?"

"You need cars to go on a road trip."

She laughed. "So my truck's been ruled out?"

"It may be better, but I never said I wanted anybody to die," he said. "I'll talk to you later."

"Love you."

"Love you."

She hung up and just found herself laughing to herself. Paul was such a dreamer—she was amazed that that childlike quality of his had never gone away. Not even once.

* * *

Paul wasn't just a dreamer anymore—he created realities. Within weeks, he and Bella had organized the entire road trip and had found the time to even buy her a new engagement ring. She appreciated the gesture, but she was still attached to her pawn shop ring.

The old group met up at Paul and Bella's house on a Friday afternoon in mid-April. It was Paul's twentieth birthday, and he was getting the only thing he'd ever really wanted and hadn't even known it: real friends. Bella and the other eight people he knew crowded his living room, ready for vacation with luggage and camping equipment, and it all felt real. He and his people were meant to coexist. Nobody (except Leah and Kim) even found the fact that he was paying for almost everything super weird—they just assumed he was still making dirty money elsewhere.

Leah and Kim chattered away as everybody waited to head out. Leah knew Jacob still existed, of course, and they still talked after their fight back in March, but something was still unresolved. The awkwardness lingered, but Leah couldn't force herself to act like they had broken up. It wasn't so cut and dry. In the meantime, she had gotten even closer with Kim, and they were prepared to take a variety of aesthetically pleasing photographs of each other on this trip. It would be like Venice, except legal and mostly sober and overall just better.

But still, Leah couldn't cut Jacob out of her mind, and vice-versa. He approached her and Kim in the packed living room, and even though she'd had the thought that everybody would be going on the trip, she hadn't realized that Jacob was part of everybody.

"You excited?" he asked her.

She looked up at him, slightly caught off guard. "Yeah," she said. "I didn't know you were coming."

"I didn't know _all_ of us were coming. I thought it was just me who needed a vacation."

"I think we all do," she said. "You especially, though."

Their discussion didn't get much deeper than in that the moment, but she didn't want to dwell on it. The buzz of constant conversations around her reminded her that there were so much more people in her circle than just Jacob. She needed this vacation just as much as anybody else.

Bella was in her bedroom, going over inventory for the last time. Even though she had micromanaged just about every detail to make this trip as smooth and interesting as possible, she still felt unbalanced. She went over her checklist and everything was ready. Then she looked down at her engagement ring.

It was nicer than the first one, with more noticeable diamonds, _I.L._ engraved in the band, and a princess cut like no other, but she wasn't materialistic. She also wasn't showy even though Paul certainly had the resources to be showy. She slipped off the ring and set it down on the table in the room. It made her feel normal but naked. Then she quickly slipped it onto a necklace and put the necklace on, hiding the ring underneath her top.

 _Good choice,_ she thought.

Minutes later, the group of ten—separated by three cars—finally met their departure from the badlands. For the time being, everything just felt right.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** It's time for a change of scenery. (Just don't assume any or all preexisting issues have been negated.)_

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	74. LXXIV

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight._

 _So it's been a while. I'm sorry. Like, SO sorry. I meant to update a while ago (probably a month ago), but I've started college and completely overestimated the amount of free time that I would have, especially free time to write. This story is still my baby, and I have not forgotten about it or you guys. I've missed writing dearly._

 _This chapter took a long time for me to complete mostly because I did not have much time to write it, and also because I've been sort of uninspired. My mind has been in a weird place. Nothing too wild happens in this chapter, and I've changed directions too many times now. So I'm not the proudest of this chapter, but I am still excited to share the rest of the story with you guys because... well, because it's my baby._

 _This chapter, chapter 74, is heavy on relationships - in particular, the primary ones (Bella x Paul, Jacob x Leah) and a secondary one that I have a few ideas for, but am still a little nervous to pursue fully (Leah x Kim). Like I said, nothing wild happens in this chapter. And if you still hate Bella x Paul at this point... I don't know why you're still here. Anyways, here is chapter 74 of Static. Thanks so much for your patience._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXXIV.**

 _i've seen your scars and kissed your crimes_

* * *

Kim hugged her knees to her chest as she sat in the passenger seat in one of the three proclaimed "kind of shitty but definitely durable" Toyotas that Paul had bummed off Craigslist for the road trip. It wasn't half bad. It made a little noise when it ran, but it was low in miles and Kim had been in worse cars, so she didn't mind.

Also in the car with her were Leah, who was driving, and Emily and Sam in the backseat. Not far ahead on the dark road were Paul and Bella by themselves, which Kim didn't find to be much of a shocker at all. It was always just those two together—she wondered what they could possibly have to talk about within the two of them all the time. Just behind Kim, Leah, Sam, and Emily were Jacob, Embry, Quil, and Seth. Whoever was driving that car was swerving around like a maniac, and trap music was being bumped. Kim decided that an anxiety attack would have been a given had she been in that car.

"I'm just glad Paul picked the route with the most cities," Leah said easily. The trip consisted of 27 major American cities, and it was pretty ideal even though she could see herself driving most of the time.

"I kinda wish he picked the more scenic route," Emily countered. "Especially between here and California. We're just gonna be on the freeway most of the time."

"You can still see things from the freeway, Em," Leah replied, her eyes dead set on the road. "The Pacific Ocean is a big place."

Kim studied the itinerary in her phone for the billionth time. "Yeah," she agreed. "We're gonna be seeing a lot, anyway. It should be good."

It was almost eight o'clock on that first night, and the group had already hit up Seattle for dinner. Kim had found out a little bit about everybody so far, like that Embry had never been to Pike Place Market before and Quil didn't know that the Seahawks played at CenturyLink. It was funny to her. They were all on the way to Tacoma now, and from a separate car, Kim could practically see Paul's excitement going through the roof. They were gonna go see his mom, and even if it seemed like Paul didn't care about anything or anyone besides himself and Bella, he adored his mother.

On the freeway, Leah's eyes strained in the darkness.

"Need to pull over?" Kim asked her. "We can switch."

"No, no, it's fine," Leah replied even though it clearly wasn't fine. She'd been driving for a while now. She needed to look at something other than the road, but she knew she needed to get through the worst part of Tacoma first.

"Now I remember why I don't like Tacoma," Emily said, a disgusted look on her face. "It smells like a fart."

"That's the Tacoma Aroma, girl," Leah told her. "Trust and believe. Oh, and rolling down your window _won't_ make it better."

"Shit, how does anybody live here?" Kim asked.

"The same way anybody lives anywhere," Sam piped up. "You get used to it."

"That's real deep of you," Emily said sarcastically. "Kim, how far are we from Paul's mom's house?"

Kim reopened the Maps application on her phone. "Twelve minutes," she replied.

"So let's say we stay until nine," Leah began. "Where are we gonna spend the night?"

"We're not stopping until we hit Portland," Kim said.

"That doesn't sound right."

"It's all in the itinerary, sis."

"Okay, but Portland is almost three hours away from here."

"Do you wanna talk to Paul? 'Cause I can call him if you don't believe me."

"Then call him," Leah said.

Kim dialed Paul's number, and he picked up immediately. She put him on speaker phone. "Yeah?" he asked.

"Are we spending the night in Tacoma or Portland?" she asked him.

"We're gonna see my mom in Tacoma for a little bit," he replied, "and then we'll keep driving until we hit Portland."

"Thanks, Paul."

"Mm-hmm."

Kim hung up and gave Leah a teasing look. "See?"

"It's whatever," Leah replied. "Except I'm not driving all the way to Portland."

"I said we can switch," Kim told her gently. "I got you."

"What would I do without you, Bambi?"

"You'd have someone else drive," Sam said.

"Thanks, Sam," Leah said. "Never thought of it that way."

* * *

Even though they weren't at Paul's mom's house for too long, by the end of the night, Leah felt that she had been there for a century. Paul loved his mother more than anything—more than the entire world. Leah hadn't expected him to be able to leave easily, especially since all his family was there and it was his birthday. The amount of time they were there seemed to take forever in the moment.

The small living room of the Tacoma house only got smaller and louder with ten more people entering it. Plenty of Paul's family members were already there. Leah, who often lived in the conversations in her head, soon became overwhelmed with the idea of socializing with people besides Kim. She soon found herself catching up with Rosa over a beer. It wasn't Rosa's first—or second or third—drink of the night.

Rosa still loved Leah. She loved Leah so much that she was the second person she hugged and kissed when the group arrived, after Paul, of course. Despite the fact that she had given birth to a selfish, misguided fool of a man, she was still the nicest person Leah had ever met. Her giving birth to Paul couldn't change that. If anything, knowing that Paul's mother was so wonderful made him a little more bearable.

"How've you been, _mija_?" Rosa asked Leah. "I was starting to think you were ignoring me."

Leah smiled. "I'm good, I'm good," she said. "I've just been busy with school and work."

"Keep it up," she told her. "You're such a good girl, Leah. You make me proud."

"Thank you, Rosa," Leah replied.

"You been keeping Paul out of trouble?"

Leah quickly tried to find the most appropriate way to tell her that she was doing much better without Paul fucking with her head anymore.

 _How could she not have seen Paul enter the house with his arm around Bella?_ Leah thought. _Maybe she doesn't want to believe that her son had picked some white girl over me—over someone he had so much chemistry with almost a year ago._

Rosa's attention was quickly drawn to Paul, who had struck up the courage to finally introduce Bella to his mom. He didn't want it to be a huge deal, and he didn't want anybody knowing that he and Bella were engaged or that Bella was pregnant. It was his twentieth birthday and he didn't want any drama.

" _Ma_ _má_ ," he greeted her. "I want you to meet _mi novia_ , Bella."

Leah scanned the room for an out, and she quickly found Kim. She was convinced that Kim was her guardian angel with how convenient her appearances were. She got up from the couch and evaded the shitstorm that was to come.

One of Paul's male cousins was flirting with Kim, but Kim wasn't flirting back. She looked rather annoyed and more interested in adjusting her backwards cap every two seconds. Leah approached them, and Kim had found her out. They retreated to the kitchen where Leah got another beer from a cooler.

 _Fuck it_ , she thought. _I'm not driving to Portland._

"Thanks for that," Kim said. "I don't know how else I can signify that I'm looking for a girl instead of a guy right now. Like, is this backwards cap not enough?" She took off her cap and ran a hand through her curly brown hair only to put the cap back on. It was a good look on her.

"I'm so fucking embarrassed right now," Leah said. Her hands kept slipping against the beer bottle. She was too shaken to even open it.

Kim grabbed it from her, popped the cap off, and then gave the bottle back.

Leah took a sip. "Thank you."

"Uh-huh. So why are you embarrassed?"

"I love Rosa, like, I do—"

"Who's Rosa?" Kim asked.

"Paul's mom. The really nice one who loves me like her own child. I just feel so bad, though, because she really expected me to keep Paul good and out of trouble and all of that. She thinks we're still together."

"With the way she's talking with Bella right now, I don't think she thinks you and him are still together," Kim pointed out.

"Well, she _thought_ we were, like, a minute ago."

"So you moved on." She shrugged her shoulders. "I'm sure she'll understand."

"The thing is, Bambi," Leah said, "Paul didn't even tell her we broke up, and that was six months ago. I just feel so… so—"

"Lee," Kim said sternly. "Paul ain't shit. We both know this. If anything, _he_ should be embarrassed. He went from a you to a Bella. That's the downgrade of the decade. Girl, you've just gotta remember what you're about."

"You're such a bad feminist," Leah teased, echoing Kim's last love affair.

Kim put her hands on Leah's cheeks and smiled. "I know. Now, drink up—I'm driving and you need to relax for the rest of the night."

She ended up downing two more beers before Kim stopped her. She told her they were about to leave, and Leah had never felt happier.

Leah was on her way out the front door when she nearly tripped over the air and down the porch stairs. She wasn't even a klutz. She felt somebody grab her arm, keeping her from falling, and when she looked up, it was Jacob.

"Keep it together, Clearwater," he told her.

She shrugged away from his grip. "I'm good, Black," she told him. Then she tripped down another stair—this time, it was more of a dive. She scraped her knee against the wooden step. "Fuck," she muttered.

"Shit, you okay?" Jacob asked.

Leah just tried to compose herself and sat down on the step. Jacob sat down next to her.

"How much did you have to drink?" he asked her. The sky was empty, so it was even colder than he expected. And it was April, but it was still cold. Not as cold as New Year's Eve, though, the last time he and Leah had been semi-faded and sitting on a porch.

"Why do you care?" she mumbled.

"I'm supposed to make sure you're okay, Lee."

"Nobody asked you how to do all that. You should take care of yourself."

He sighed. "So you're still on that."

She leaned towards him and rested her head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry I'm such a bitch, Jake," she told him, pretending that her voice wasn't cracking and that she wasn't upset.

"You're not a bitch—"

"No, I am," she interrupted him. "I… I think it's because I wanna be in control all the time. It's always been that way. I'm always pointing out the bad things in people, but the second someone calls me out on it, it's fucking World War III. No wonder you left me."

"Just because you fucked up doesn't mean it's over," he told her. "We just need some space."

She looked up at him and wanted to cry. "I love you, Jake," she said.

He stood up and walked away. The image of him grew smaller and smaller by the instant. Her whole world shrank with him.

She stared at him from the stairs with tired eyes and a devastating frown. "I love you, Jake," she repeated, louder this time.

His silence was ear-splitting.

* * *

Under the freeway lights, Paul drove just a little past the legal limit. He'd gotten to see his mom and introduce her to Bella. Next up was Portland and everything felt just right. Nothing had ever gone so well for this long in his entire life.

"I'm so glad your mom likes me," Bella murmured.

The truth was that Rosa would never love any of Paul's girlfriends as much as she loved Leah, but Bella was a close second place. When Rosa had seen Bella and Paul together, she had seen nothing but love. And anyway, she only wanted her son to be happy. Bella was his happiness.

His happiness was sitting in the passenger seat of his car, but leaned over to be as close to him as possible. His happiness was tired but happy. His happiness was full of cheesy, undivided affection as well as warmth and something special that was theirs and theirs only.

Bella scooted over and picked up her purse from under the seat and pulled out a sonogram. She'd seen it a dozen times. She had gotten an ultrasound just before they'd hit the road, and Paul didn't even know.

"Paul," she began. "I wanna show you something. Just don't crash, okay?"

"There's nothing to crash into," he said. "Besides, _I_ know how to drive."

"Just slow down, okay?"

He slowed down a little, and she handed him the sonogram. He put it right over the horn and looked down at it, his mouth agape. "Is that…?"

She nodded. "That's our kid," she said.

"How long have—?"

"Eyes on the road," she said. "But since yesterday."

He looked up but quickly glanced back down at the sonogram. "Baby girl, this is… This is _the_ best birthday present I've ever gotten."

She gripped his arm and rested against him again. She focused on her breathing, focused on making this image last forever. She wanted the memory of this moment to be as timeless as they were, and she knew she was—they were—succeeding.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** So there's a little fluff out of the way. The next chapter should have a little more drama and should hopefully come around sooner than a month._

 _Thanks as always to those who stuck around,_

 _HS_


	75. LXXV

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. So here is chapter 75 of Static. I tried to have a couple of callbacks to images/motifs/other little nerdy writer things I've already written in this story, as well as other ones. I've been at this for a while, so I'm allowed. Anyway, I like this chapter more than the last one, but it's still not my favorite. I'm just happy I was able to get this out to you guys earlier. You deserve more timely updates for being loyal for 16 months and 75 chapters. I'd like to give a shoutout to J. Cole and the fact that I caught up the bandwagon 2 years late, as well as my favorite app, Vine. (By the time this story is over, Vine will probably be gone for good. I'm sad.) I'd like to give a HUGE shoutout to those who understood my recent absence from this story. Thanks for being loyal and wonderful._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXXV.**

 _don't save her_  
 _she don't wanna be saved_

* * *

Leah sat underneath the Venice Beach sun, and she felt the heat. She felt the sand, she felt the ocean, she felt it all. She felt everything.

Most importantly, she felt content. She wasn't in love with the world or in love with her life—reality wouldn't let that happen. But in a pure, sober way, she was okay with everything that was occurring around her.

She remembered that she didn't entirely hate California. She just hated some memories affiliated with it, but there was still the possibility of making positive ones. She liked the change of scenery that came with being here. She'd always thought of herself as rather gloomy. It had to be ascribed. It had to have something to do with where the planets and stars had been positioned where and when she was born. The universe had something to do with her general disposition, and she couldn't shake that. But maybe she didn't have to be that way all the time. Maybe she just needed a change. She'd been experiencing enough of them whether she wanted to or not.

 _Change is okay_ , she decided.

"Okay, this one was, like, _hella_ good," Kim said, lowering her cell phone.

Leah sauntered over to Kim and squinted down at the screen. Kim swiped through the aesthetically pleasing photos they had just taken. So far on this trip, they had taken a lot of them. It was their second favorite mutual pastime, right after watching _Selena._

"Ooh, I really need to get an Instant-gram," Leah said. "I'd get so many thirst followers just from this picture."

Kim laughed. " _Instagram_ , granny," she corrected her. "But true—your ass looks great in this one."

"You always say my ass looks great," Leah pointed out. "You don't count."

"Shut up."

They laughed and went back to their towels, where almost everyone else was. They sat down in the soft sand, and the contentedness remained. The universe was still good.

"God," Kim said. "I still have a mild form of PTSD from this place."

"We really did that."

"Did what?"

"That."

"That?"

"That," Leah confirmed. Then they laughed. Neither of them liked to think about last summer for very long. It had been too bright. Too much.

"Oh, shit, Lee, turn it up!" Kim said excitedly.

Leah turned up the volume on the Bluetooth speaker as a mid-tempo hip-hop song played. Kim gyrated her hips as she danced on the beach, looking like a dream in her white bikini. She danced around like a ball of pure energy, like nothing hurt.

Leah took it all in, and she remembered that she didn't hate California at all. She was right where she needed to be, along with the planets and the stars. The universe was in sync.

* * *

Paul sat at a bench on the boardwalk, facing the beach. He was leaning forward with his elbows pressed into his knees. He cradled a pack of cigarettes in his hands. It was expensive—even more so here in Los Angeles.

 _It wasn't even expensive,_ he told himself. _Nothing's expensive anymore. Quit thinking like you're broke._

The truth was that he hadn't smoked in a while. Bella, as adaptable as ever, had finally cracked just before they'd departed La Push.

" _I still love you, but you smell and I'm tired of hearing you coughing all the time."_

He thought she was incredible.

Paul had been trying to quit for a while, but Bella had been the push. That was what she did. Quitting was difficult, though—Paul didn't feel right. He'd been smoking since he'd been sent away when he was fifteen. He knew it wasn't right, but he'd done it, anyway. That was how it went with him.

He was trying so _damn_ hard to do good and be good. He'd always been resistant to change—it wasn't in his nature to just go with the flow or whatever cheesy shit people did. He was him. He would be him to the very end, but he wanted to be a better version of him.

It was all for Bella, after all. That was his happiness. That was his everything.

He looked up and she caught his eye, even as he was super far away. Bella, clad in blue bikini bottoms and an oversized gray shirt over a bikini top, was wading in the ocean. She looked fucking radiant.

He put the pack of cigarettes down on the ground in front of him, and when he looked up, Jacob was standing next to the bench.

"I thought you quit," Jacob said.

Paul sighed. "I haven't started back up." He scooted over so Jacob could sit next next to him.

"It's been a while, bro," Jacob said, meaning it had been a while since they'd actually talked. "How've ya been?"

"I'm out here, man," Paul replied. "I guess it's going good. What about you?"

"It's good, it's good." He trailed off, and Paul remembered why he didn't talk to Jacob much—they didn't have anything in common besides the women they dated, and that was kind of messed up.

Paul's gaze fell back onto Bella, who continued to sway in the water. He wondered if he would ever get over the sight of her. He was turning into the kind of guy he'd made fun of (which would be Jacob) for being heads over heels over a girl, but back then, he just didn't _get it._

"Yo, I wanna marry Bella," Paul said, thinking aloud.

Jacob just laughed. "Good fuckin' luck," he said.

Paul snapped into reality. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" he asked defensively.

"It means I know her. And I know for a damn fact that she's not the type to wife up. She's not loyal."

"That's real funny," Paul said, "'cause she's as loyal as ever to me."

"You think you're the first person to try to save her?" Jacob challenged.

Paul was trying his best to not sock this guy in the face. "Look, Jake," he explained, "she was always running off, running away from you and her piece-of-shit ex, only because you guys are boys. She found a man—me—and now she don't gotta run no more. Bella needed a man, and that man is me. That's all there is to it."

"You got it all wrong, though. Hoes don't wanna be saved."

Paul's voice was quiet. He shook his head. "She never needed saving. She saved _me_."

"Yeah, right. I don't know why you're treating some ho like she's God or something."

"She wasn't a ho when she was with you, though, right?" Paul asked. "Both times? And the next time you call my girl a ho, your juvenile ass is gonna end up in the hospital. But like I said, Jake, she was running around looking for a man, looking for someone to treat her right and give it to her _good_. I gave it to her damn good. I've _been_ giving it to her damn good, and she's been loyal ever since. She's finally being treated right after dealing with ain't shit guys like you and her ex. I'm the best she's ever had and will ever have. I'm sorry, but that's just how it is."

"You make it sound like you weren't talking mad shit about her the last time we really talked. Did you forget or something? Last time I checked, her pussy wasn't that amazing."

Paul just shook his head. "I know you've fucked her a few times or whatever, but that don't mean a thing if you never make love. You're a boy, though, so you wouldn't know what a man knows. When you make love to a woman, especially to one as beautiful as Bella, you gotta know what you're doing, and you gotta know it's not all about you. You gotta ask her, and I mean _really_ ask her, 'How does it feel?' When she tells you how it really, _really_ feels, you either keep doing what you're doing or you ask her how she wants it. When you give it to he just right, you made love. Jake, I give her love. _You_ gave her a good ten minutes. So shut the fuck up and grow the fuck up while you're at it."

"You're so fake deep," Jacob said. "You ain't shit, Paul. And, anyway, I don't see how you're calling me a kid when I'm older than you."

"By what? Three months? And yeah, I ain't shit, but I'm out here living. Damn, why you so mad now, anyway? I thought you and Leah were happy or whatever."

"We were," Jacob said. "I fucked up, though."

"Shit, Jake, you're in college, right?" Paul asked. "Why you always doing stupid shit? You can't fuck up with Leah. I mean, shit, that's _Leah Clearwater._ "

"What the hell do you mean?"

"You don't fuck up with Leah," Paul clarified. "She's probably the most interesting girl you're gonna meet in your entire, whole-ass life and—"

"You're with Bella," Jacob reminded him.

"I said _your_ entire, whole-ass life. This ain't about me. Jake, you gotta make shit right with her. She's a good girl. She's funny and crazy smart and will actually give a fuck about you until she doesn't. Girls like her don't come around too often. And even though you're kinda hardheaded, you can't let a girl like that go."

"Why do you still care so much about Leah?" Jacob wondered.

Paul shrugged as he kept his eyes on Bella. "I got room to care about Leah. That's family right there."

They were silent for a little while. Then Jacob leaned back against the bench. "Why do you wanna marry Bella so bad all of a sudden?" he asked. "Did you get her pregnant or something?"

Paul paused for a moment. "I mean—uh—yes."

"Shit."

"We're engaged, though, so it's all good."

"I guess. Am I the last to know?"

"You're actually the first of the group to know," Paul said. "So just keep this on the low, alright? 'Cause I don't want any drama."

"Yeah, sure," Jacob replied. "When's she due?"

"Sometime in November. She says it's gonna be a Scorpio. I still don't even know what that means, though."

Jacob just chuckled.

"What?" Paul asked.

"Leah's a Scorpio."

"Oh, _fuck_."

* * *

Jacob later strolled along the boardwalk by himself as he worked up the courage to talk to Leah. She was still down at the beach with Kim. They'd been spending a lot of time together—even more so than they already did. Jacob wondered if Kim was filling the void that he'd left. He wondered how she did it. Then he realized that those two probably hadn't ever had sex, whereas he and Leah had jumped into it for no real reason.

Or maybe it had nothing to do with sex. Contrary to everything and everyone that Jacob had ever been around, sex wasn't _everything_. Maybe Kim and Leah worked out as friends because Kim knew who she was and knew what she was about. She was strong and tough. Most importantly, she could keep up with Leah's attitude.

Jacob, on the other hand, was _hopeless._ He was _damaged goods_ and he was _insecure_ and he had a microscopic amount of self worth. He was a lost fucking cause.

Those just weren't ascribed characteristics, though. He just wished he could shake them off as fast as Leah had shaken _him_ off.

Jacob ended up in a crowd of spectators who were clearly enthralled in the talents of a street juggler. Everybody _oohed_ and _ahhed_ throughout the performance, but he was silent. He could hardly pay attention.

He was suddenly nudged in his right forearm. He turned, and there was Leah. Even though he knew she was probably still mad, he couldn't help but feel better with her around. It was impossible to be mad with someone that gorgeous at his side. Yeah, the last time they had really talked, she had dragged him, but he still missed being around her. He was weak and hopeless and damaged, but she made him feel better. Paul had been right—she was probably the greatest girl he was ever gonna meet.

If only he knew how to tell her this.

They watched the juggler together, and the performance suddenly got a whole lot more interesting. The crowd had exploded into applause when Leah leaned in and asked him, loudly, "How's it going?"

He leaned right back to her and said, "It's good. My ex-girlfriend's pregnant, but at least it's not mine, right?" just as the crowd was dying down again. Everybody in a mile radius had managed to hear him, and everybody was staring.

Leah's voice was overly surprised. " _What?_ "

They left the crowd and ended up in line at an ice cream cart.

"I mean, I can't say I'm surprised that Bella got knocked up," Leah said. "I just didn't think that Paul would wanna tell _you_ , of all people."

"He slipped up," Jacob explained. "Like I did, just now."

"Please don't tell me I'm the last to know. I'll kill you _and_ Kim."

"You're not. You and me are the only people who know. Just don't tell anyone. I feel like an ass for fucking up and telling you in the first place."

"Trust me," she said. "I know how to keep a secret."

"No, for real," he said semi-urgently. "You can't tell anybody. Not even Kim."

" _Okaaaay_ ," she replied, her eyes wide. "I won't tell anybody. Not even Kim."

They paid for their ice cream cones and were soon heading back to where everyone else was, over on the beach.

"I guess we both dodged a bullet," Jacob said.

"What, you didn't get anyone pregnant and I didn't end up getting pregnant?" Leah asked. "It's not too late."

"Don't jinx it," he told her.

She just smiled. "How do you like it here in LA?"

"I'm not gonna lie, I love it," he replied. "If I didn't know everything was so expensive here, I'd move."

"Shit, I know, right?" she asked. "I'll tell you what—if one of us ever wins the lottery, we'll move. No going back." _Since winning seems to not be so impossible anymore…_

He laughed. "You're on."

* * *

Their dialogue for the rest of the day didn't get too deep. Leah, who thrived on depth and profoundness and conversations about the alignment of the universe, feared that Jacob wouldn't be able to reach her level again. Maybe he didn't have the capacity. Maybe he realized that she just wasn't shallow enough. His simplicity usually won out, but would he ever compromise? Would he ever see her? She didn't know.

Even though Leah wasn't particularly angry with Jacob right now, they still hadn't found their closure from the bad. She could forgive—and never, ever forget—but he still refused to even apologize. They weren't getting worse, but they sure as hell weren't getting better.

She didn't feel so lucky to hold a secret with him. Bella's pregnancy wasn't even their secret to keep, and Leah just realized that her first niece or nephew wouldn't even be coming from Seth. It wouldn't even be her _real_ niece or nephew, and she didn't want to say she couldn't see herself loving the child like family, but it didn't seem real enough. She didn't feel like the existence of her near-stepsister and ex-boyfriend's offspring had much to do with her. She just felt like she was on the outside looking in on what could have been her life. If she had given Paul one more chance, everything would be different.

Dwelling on it wasn't making her feel any better, though.

It wasn't working for Jacob, either, so he didn't dwell on it. In fact, he tried to suppress what he knew for the rest of the time they were in Los Angeles. He really did try.

Everybody was cramped in Paul and Bella's motel room for dinner that night. Over real tacos and Coronas (and water for Bella), the ten of them all laughed and shared memories. It was just like the old days—just like back when they were nine and ten, fifteen and sixteen. At twenty and twenty-one, there was no difference. Jacob forgot why he ever felt disconnected from everyone. These people were _his_ people, and they were here to stay.

Jacob stood up in the middle of the room for an impromptu toast. "Hey, I got something to say real quick," he said, half-faded.

Everybody quieted down, and Jacob made sure he could see everyone. "I just wanted to let you guys know that I really needed this vacation."

"Don't we all," Leah said sarcastically to Kim.

"Thanks for bringing us here, Paul," Jacob continued. "It's been incredible. Now, I don't wanna come off cheesy, but here's a toast to the good life. Now, if you would all raise your beer bottles—well, except you, Bella—"

The room fell completely silent.

 _Shit_ , Jacob thought.

Leah had never seen the feeling of realization hit somebody's face so fucking quick.

Paul's face just fell into the palm of his own hand. Bella's eyes were at the ceiling, and she looked like she was holding her breath.

Seth smacked Quil in the arm. " _Another_ Vine, Quil? Really?"

Paul just started laughing, and the general mood of the room was light again. Nobody was that surprised, after all. Then he took a swig of his beer and gave Bella's arm a rub. "It's all good," he said. "Don't worry about it, Jake. It's all good."

And after that, it really was all good. There was no use in being mad about everything or everyone. They just let it be, which was the easiest way to go.

Jacob decided that should have been figured out a long time ago.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	76. LXXVI

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. (Happy 8th birthday to the first movie, though.) So I don't like to make excuses, but I've been going through a lot these last couple of months, which explains my infrequency in regards to updates. I've been really consumed with school, family, and depression lately. I try to write when I'm feeling low, but I've been feeling so low that I haven't been able to write. It's been rough but I'm determined to finish this story, and I will. It's the least I can do since some of you have remained so loyal._

 _This chapter, chapter 76, is Emily-centric. Last time we checked in on her, she was still writing her story and was still with Sam, who doesn't pay attention to her. If there's something that both Emily and I have learned, it's that history doesn't mean a thing if you're hurting. This chapter isn't wildly exciting, so if you skip it I won't be too offended, but it means a lot to me. This chapter features a little callback to chapter 26, because promises matter._

 _Thank you and enjoy._

 **LXXVI.**

 _this is not about me_  
 _i can see you taking it personally_  
 _i see you put your pride aside_  
 _i'll wait a minute while you try to compensate_

 _yeah, this is not about me_  
 _i see you thinking i'm the missing piece_  
 _to the puzzle that you think is your life_  
 _i'll wait a minute while you try to come for mine_

* * *

If there was any habit that Emily had kept up for the longest time, it was writing her novel. Throughout the changes and subsequent adversities she had faced, that was the one thing that had truly remained the same.

She'd been writing it since the onset of her depression during her freshman year of high school. She'd been inspired by plenty of things over the years since she had started. She'd tried the scene kid look, with the long bangs and an excess of eyeliner. Her mom had called her ugly for it. She'd tried the lazy athlete look, which only Leah was able to pull off. It just wasn't Emily's thing. She'd tried the bad bitch look ( _long_ before white girls hopped on the train), with the long acrylic nails and big hoop earrings. It had been a good look on her, but she hadn't been able to keep up with it. She'd felt like a baby, having to re-learn how to use her phone and pick up coins and put on any jewelry with a clasp. She'd given up the nails, but her septum ring still remained.

But regardless of all the physical change she had undergone since the raw age of fourteen, her novel was still here. Her little novel was Emily's best friend, and it was the most loyal thing she'd ever known. Emily had been with Sam for as long as she had been with her novel, but if there was anything that really drew the line between her two habits, it was that one would never wake up and act like it didn't love her, and the other would find that to be extremely easy.

Sam had been in a mood for years now. That was his unhappy medium. Things could be bad or not bad, but never good. And Emily, being Emily, had cared. She had begged and pleaded and worshiped him at his feet, dying for him to open up. Dying for him to not be so cold for once in his life. She had constantly set herself on fire to make sure that he was warm, and he hadn't done anything but watch her burn just a little too bright, afraid of getting scorched himself.

Emily supposed that one thing that Sam and her novel had in common was that their respective relationships with her were on and off, but one was more forgiving than the other. Emily could abandon her novel, desert all her notebooks, and forget about everything for a month only to come back more creative than ever. She could do the same with Sam, but he wouldn't like it. Sam didn't like anything. He didn't like himself. He didn't like being on this road trip.

And not even that far into the trip, Emily realized that he didn't even like _her_ all that much anymore.

Somewhere between Las Vegas and Phoenix, as Kim was driving, Emily began to rummage through her bag. She was in a semi-good mood (and her phone was dead), so she felt like writing her novel. She had multitudes of notebooks, and none of them were labeled by whatever content was in them, but she knew just where everything was. She didn't write her scenes in order, of course, but she knew just which one she wanted to work on, and the notebook she knew it would be located in was gone. She looked through her bag for the specific notebook about three times, and she still couldn't find it. Two other ones were missing, as well.

"Goddamn it," she muttered.

"Everything okay back there?" Kim asked, turning the music down.

"Yeah, it's fine," Emily said, except it wasn't fine. It really fucking wasn't. She began to go through Sam's backpack, and he quickly got defensive.

"What are you looking for?" he demanded.

"My newer green notebook," she replied. "And the older green one, too—oh, and the blue one. Have you seen them?"

He just shrugged. "Maybe you lost them. You've got ten of those things."

"I have twelve," she corrected him, "and I don't lose anything."

"It's not that big a deal, Em," he said.

She felt her face growing hot and red. She could almost cry with how angry she was. Sam didn't know shit about her novel—he didn't know shit about what it meant to her. He didn't know that every little piece was important, even the ones she would eventually throw away. He didn't know anything about her _or_ her novel because he didn't deserve to. The only person who had that piece of her—the most important piece—was Embry. And Embry was in the car behind them, probably listening to Quil freestyle about weed and pussy as he tried really, _really_ hard not to say the "N" word.

Emily just turned away to the window and stared out at the cacti. She let Sam win like she always did.

Kim looked at Leah for a second with widened eyes. _Wow_ , she mouthed.

 _Are we like that?_ Leah mouthed back.

Kim rolled her eyes and then turned the music back up.

* * *

At twilight, the group stopped at a camping ground just outside Phoenix, in the desert. Emily was watching Seth and Quil attempt to light a fire as she sat on a nearby bench, trying to write. She knew just which scenes she was missing from her lost notebooks, but it was hard to recreate them. There was nothing like a first draft, no matter how bad it was. She felt like she had been robbed. She watched Seth and Quil struggle to light the campfire, and she felt just like the slabs of wood in the pit. She felt cold.

Somebody tapped her on the shoulder, and she closed her notebook, looking up. It was Sam. "Yes?" she asked.

"Walk with me for a minute."

She pointed her pen down to her notebook. "I really can't right—," she began.

"Come on," he insisted.

She stood up and followed him. They began to walk far away from the group. She could hear Seth and Quil howl in the distance as they got the fire going. She wondered what Sam could possibly say to her that he couldn't say in front of everybody else. What was he hiding?

It had to be serious, so she already forgave him before he could say anything. He was tired of her, and she kind of hated him, but he was her broken boy. He was all that she knew, and she may have given up on a lot of things, but he wasn't one of them.

"What's going on?" she asked him, her voice soft and blindingly supportive even though he didn't deserve it.

"I took your notebooks," he told her. It was the first time he had been straight up with her in years. She hadn't had to pry it out of him, and she wished he hadn't changed all of a sudden.

All she could ask him was, "Where are they?"

"They're somewhere back in LA," he said. "I threw 'em out. I didn't see the point in you having a billion diaries, and I know you were talking about me—"

"They're not even diaries," she said defensively, half-lying. Some of the passages were autobiographical. Others had people's names changed for the sake of her own pain and sanity. "And that's pretty conceited of you to assume that they're about you, Sam."

"I know, but—," he began.

"But _nothing_ ," she said. "You had no right to do that."

It was now that she realized that Sam didn't know her. Nobody could ever make her feel as lonely as he could, and that feeling had gone on for years. She'd been lonelier _with_ him than without him, so for him to suddenly act like he cared didn't make any sense. It was like he was coming back from the dead when she had only known the ghost of the person he used to be.

"Em, I know everything," he said. "This book, or whatever… It _is_ about me." She practically saw him put his pride away for a moment. "It's about us."

"No, Sam, this is _not_ about us." She wanted to elaborate. She wanted to tell him that her novel was all about her and her experiences, and while he had been around for a lot of them, he did not share the same being with her. Her novel—or the pieces of it, really—was a love letter to adolescence, and she wasn't fond of sharing.

He just wouldn't get it, though. That, she was positive of. This was confirmed when he admitted, "I don't get you."

"But it's not like you've ever tried," she said. She expected herself to cry, but she had no tears to shed for him. She was all out. "I'd tell you to keep reading in order to find out about me, but you already threw my work out."

"It's not work, Emily," he said, his voice aggressive. "It's… it's _bullshit._ You've quit jobs so you can stay at home and drink yourself blind and write _this_. And the worst thing is that you never told me about whatever the hell you were going through."

"I'm always going through something," she replied. "You just never listened to me. You were never around, so I—"

"So you turned to Embry. I know."

"So I kept writing," she finished. "Not everything is about you. This is the one thing I had to my damn self, and you just ruined it."

"You've got a hundred other notebooks," he said, his voice harsh, "so don't even try that shit."

"But it was the one thing I never had to share with you," she told him. "You literally took the thing that means the _most_ to me and fucked it all up by taking it personally when it has nothing to do with you. You're fucking selfish, Sam."

"Everything I do is for you," he said, his voice starting to break. It was the first time she'd seen him get this emotional since they were practically kids. "Since we were fourteen, fifteen, everything I've done was for us, and you know that. You _know_ that."

"Well, something changed," she said quietly. "But I'm okay with that. I'm capable of being by myself."

"Don't say that," he said. His eyes were stinging with tears that he was too macho to release. "You know that's a lie. You _know_ you need me."

She shook her head. "I don't need you," she said. Then it dawned on her. "I don't even think I want you."

"Is it Embry?" he demanded. "Again?"

 _It might be. I never really got over him, anyway._

"Is it?" he urged.

"It doesn't even matter," she finally said. "Sam, whatever this is, or whatever we lost—it's over. We're over."

She turned away before she could see him cry, before she could join in. She didn't want to share one last thing with him.

* * *

After night fell, Emily sat around a campfire with everybody else, and for the first time, she saw Sam across the flames from her. He was usually at her side. She didn't feel lost or like she was missing a piece, though. At least, not yet. She would have to rewrite history in order to not feel like that.

Bella, who sat next to her, nudged her in the arm. "See," she said. "I _told_ you I'd take you to the desert."

"What, you thought I forgot?" Emily asked, remembering when she and Bella had been drunk at Kim's house ages ago. They had just planned their trip to Venice, and Bella had told her that she would write better if she wasn't drunk. In the end, she had been kind of right.

Bella shook her head, smiling. "No. Never."

"I'm glad I made it," Emily said.

"I'm glad you did, too."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** On deck: Blackwater. Again, I apologize for the late update._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	77. LXXVII

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. Thank you guys so much for your support, especially recently. I know today is probably a bad time to update, since it's a holiday, but I wanted to get at least one more chapter done before I return to school. I'm thankful for you guys and your kind words. They inspire me to keep going. We're so close to the end of the story that it would be evil not to._

 _This chapter actually contains a bit more than just Blackwater. It contains more than I planned, but I'm glad it turned out this way. There are more music and pop culture references than usual. This story and I are both products of our time, so what can I really say? There are also a couple callbacks to previous chapters and their respective dramatic episodes._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXXVII.**

 _stuck in a wildfire, we could be perfect_  
 _sick of the heartache, under the mood of it_  
 _me, and it's only me_  
 _you, and it's only you_  
 _simple as it could be, too good to have you too_

* * *

By the time the group made it to Houston, they had switched it up a bit. They changed as the scenery did. Since Albuquerque, the car configurations had altered. Leah, Kim, Emily, and Bella rode in one car now. Jacob, Seth, and Embry rode in another. Sam, Quil, and Paul were in the last. Bella was kind of a fish out of water with the other girls. The girls led the way, though, and while a few things had changed, Leah and Kim hadn't left each other's sides. Leah also hadn't given up the auxillary cord for as long as she had been in the passenger seat.

Bella was leaned forward in the backseat, taking in the wide view of bright downtown Houston through the windshield that morning in May. She leaned forward into Leah's seat, peering down at Kim's phone in her lap. "Can you play something other than Beyoncé?" she requested.

Kim and Leah burst into laughter. Bella rolled her eyes.

"You _do_ know where we are, right?" Emily asked.

"H-town vicious, baby," Leah said. "It'd be disrespectful not to bump her music the entire time we're here."

"Oh, yeah, 'cause the locals don't get enough?"

"They're proud of her," Kim said. "If La Push ever puts out a star, we'll be proud of them, too."

"We just might get a star out of the rez," Bella replied, glancing down at her phone. "Paul says Quil's been on the same freestyle since we entered Texas. He says he had no idea the guy could keep going on about—"

"Pussy and weed," Emily said.

"Mm-hmm," Bella said. "And his mom, too."

"I swear," Leah said, "we all talk shit now, but I bet that's just what Quil's gonna do if he decides to stop being a fuckass all the time and put his creativity towards something other than selling and smoking weed."

"You think he's gonna become a star?" Kim asked Leah. "Like, actually. In reality."

"Nah," Leah admitted. "I can see him dropping a mixtape, though. Promote it on Vine."

"That's the most millenial thing I've ever heard," Emily said.

"I better get paid in royalities," Kim said. "I'm the reason why he even has so many followers."

"Well, you're one of two reasons," Leah corrected her. Kim's iconic line had only come about due to Bella fucking her over and, specifically, calling her a shark.

"What's the other reason?" Bella asked.

Leah and Kim exchanged a look.

"Do you have a Vine account?" Emily asked.

"No, just Pinterest and Goodreads."

 _That's so... Bella of you,_ Emily thought. "Then I honestly wouldn't even worry about it," she told her.

The four women sat contently as Beyoncé's warm voice crooned having big deals and little things.

Suddenly, Bella asked, "Kim, could you pull over?"

"We are seven minutes away from the park," Kim told her. The group was actually sticking to the itinerary—Kim was especially surprised since the occurrence of drama was almost a given whenever the ten of them got together. The soccer mom in her was pleased.

"Kim, _pull over_ ," Bella said severely.

"She's _pregnant_ , Kim," Leah said.

"Oh, crap, you're right." Kim signaled and pulled over to the side of the road, where Bella nearly flung herself out of the car and threw up into a paper bag.

Leah sat in her seat with her eyes shut and the music turned way up. She covered her nose and mouth with her hand and tried to remember why they had even changed the car formations, anyway, besides the fact that Sam and Emily's breakup had made it necessary. Leah was proud of her cousin— _so_ proud—but she couldn't help but think that in any ordinary situation, this would be Paul's problem.

As the retching seemed to come to an end, Kim's phone vibrated in Leah's lap. It was Paul.

"Put it on speaker phone," Kim said.

Leah did as told.

"You guys alright?" Paul asked. In the background was Quil's voice. The guy was still going with his freestyle. "Yo, Quil, shut the fuck—"

"Oh, yeah, we're fine," Leah said. "You baby mama was just throwing up her guts, though."

His voice was almost alarmed. "Is she okay?"

"She's fine," Leah told him, clearly annoyed. "Jeez, morning sickness never killed anyone."

She could practically see his facial expression now. Narrowed eyes and a tight mouth. "You know what," he began.

"She's just salty because we couldn't go to Selena's grave," Kim said.

"You would be, too," Leah said to her, "if you were a real fan."

"Shit, Lee, we already went over this," Paul said. "Corpus Christi is just hella out of the way."

Leah rolled her eyes, and she knew he could see that from wherever he was now. "You know how much Selena means to me," she told him.

"Yeah, everyone does," he said, his tone dismissive. "Is Bella good now?"

"I said she's fine," Leah replied. "We'll see you soon, okay?"

"Okay."

Leah hung up, and then she looked to Kim. _Hate him_ , she mouthed.

Kim just put her hand on Leah's bare thigh and smiled sadly. Then she rolled down the window that Bella stood near. "You alright, girl?" she called.

Bella set the paper bag down on the ground and went back into the car. She dug in her purse for one of the many packages of gum that she had, and stuck a piece in her mouth.

"Thanks," she said quietly.

The girls caught up with the guys at Sesquicentennial Park, and it was like they had never left home. The six guys were all too consumed with the sunshine and the game of flyers up. Even Sam, who had been distraught since Emily had broken up with him, seemed to be enjoying himself. At least, that was what it looked like.

Kim and Emily went off to join them and go fully feel the sun, but Bella and Leah lagged behind. Bella wasn't quite revived yet—she'd really puked a lot that last time, and something about vomiting really took a lot out of her. The least that Leah could do was walk with her.

"What are you and Paul thinking of naming the baby?" Leah wondered aloud as they slowly approached the rest of the group.

"Paul wants to name him—or her, I don't know yet—after someone in his family. He's thinking Rosa or Carla. He's really traditional when it comes things like this. I don't have a lot of family, so I want to name the baby after a tree. Or a place. I was thinking of Willow or even Valencia, maybe."

"Oh, that's sweet," Leah said, and as weird as this situation was, she meant it.

"Yeah. I literally cannot come up with anything for a boy, though. Besides Caleb, maybe. I know Paul _wants_ a boy, but he thinks it'll be a girl."

"And what do you think?"

"I think it'll be a boy," Bella said. "So I'm fucked."

They both laughed.

"When are you due?" Leah asked.

"Sometime in November. Scorpio season."

"They'll give you hell no matter what the gender is."

"Oh, trust me, I'm expecting it."

"Are you scared?" Leah asked. "Not about the Scorpio thing, but about giving birth."

"I try not to think about giving birth," Bella admitted. "But, yeah, I'm scared. I can't see myself pushing a human being out of my vagina, but I guess it has to happen sometime."

Bella was too afraid to mention to Leah that she almost _knew_ she was going to face postpartum depression, or that she _knew_ she wasn't ready to be a mother. She was too afraid to admit these predictions to herself. Bella liked kids—much in thanks to her job—and she knew she was caring and had the capacity to be selfless, but motherhood required more than just that. She felt terribly inadequate, but that was how most things went for her. This was a big deal, but she would have to wipe away her tears, throw away her doubts, and handle it when the time came. Suicide was no longer sitting in the back of her mind like a glowing exit sign—at least, she thought. She wanted to call her wild-eyed mother—because she knew that some of her ways came directly from her—and ask how she had handled it. Then again, Renee _hadn't_ really handled it. Bella had learned to handle it herself, and at a very young age, which was why she was a decent cook and knew how taxes worked.

"Bella," Leah began, "you may have fucked a lot of things up in the past, but I don't think you'll fuck this one up."

"You really think so?"

Leah nodded. "Yeah." And she wasn't even lying. She didn't know why, but somewhere deep down, she believed in Bella. She didn't hate her, and she wasn't sure if she liked her, but she believed in her.

Bella's phone vibrated all of a sudden. She took it out from the pocket of her shorts and saw that Charlie was calling her. She hadn't heard from Charlie in ages—he didn't even know that he would soon be a grandfather to Paul's baby, let alone that she was dating Paul. He didn't even know that she and Paul were going to buy a house for him and Sue in the near future, once they got their situation straight. Charlie really didn't know anything becuase Bella hadn't been around much. The guilt washed over her.

"Hey, Dad," she said uneasily into the phone.

He sounded strangely elated. "Hey, kid. How's the trip so far? Where are you guys now?"

"It's been great," Bella replied. "We're in Houston. It's super hot here."

"Are Leah and Seth with you?"

"Leah is."

"Put her on speaker phone."

Bella did as told, and Sue's voice popped up, super excited. "Hey, baby!" she said.

"Hey, Mom, what's up?"

"Me and Charlie got married last night," she said bluntly.

"Are you kidding me?" Leah blurted out just like she had when Charlie and Sue had gotten engaged.

"Oh my _God_ ," Bella gasped. "Congratulations. Did you guys get married in Forks?"

"We actually took a road trip to Vegas," Sue said. "We're gonna head back up tomorrow."

"I didn't think you guys would do it so soon," Leah said. "I'm so happy for you guys."

"Thanks, sweetie. Where's your brother at?"

Leah looked around the park. "He's somewhere around here."

"Damn. Well, we gotta go now," Sue told her. "Tell him to call me, okay?"

"Okay," Leah said.

"We love you two."

"Love you, too," Bella said.

Sue hang up, and Leah and Bella just exchanged a look. Leah's eyes were wide and Bella's eyebrows had shot up.

"Well, shit," Bella muttered.

"That was wild," Leah murmured.

"It sure was... sis."

 _Holy shit,_ Leah thought. She couldn't believe Bella was actually right.

* * *

In Atlanta, Jacob found himself caught up in his own feelings. This wasn't exactly a new thing for him, but somehow, it felt like the end of the world. And it was all at the hands of Leah Clearwater.

He still really hadn't mended things with Leah, and that was what had him all torn up. If he knew anything about her, it was that nothing was over until it was _over,_ which meant they wouldn't be okay until he formally apologized. The reason why the two of them were on bad terms right now was her fault, but it was his job to fix it since them falling out would hurt him _way_ more than it would hurt her.

It had been a good night and early morning when Leah and Jacob found themselves in a Waffle House. It was the fifth one they'd been to since they'd hit the South, and Leah decided that whenever she happened to win the lottery, she would have a Waffle House built on the rez. They deserved it.

Jacob and Leah had walked from a club that they had snuck into with Kim, Quil, and Embry. The other three had decided to head back to the motel, but Jacob and Leah had lagged behind and ended up at this Waffle House, at one in the morning. Jacob wasn't the only person there semi-faded, and Leah wasn't the only person there in a short, backless dress. They didn't stick out. At least, not yet.

They sat down at a small table, and Leah sighed deeply. She hadn't realized how exhausted she really was. She wasn't even sure if she really liked nightclubs.

"How are you feeling, honey?"

"Sober," she replied, her tone guarded, "so you don't have to call me that."

"Shit, my bad. I just... I just don't what we are right now."

She just peered up at him from her menu with pursed lips.

"I never really did say sorry," he told her. "For all that happened back in La Push."

"And then Tacoma," she added.

"And then Tacoma," he echoed. "Leah, I'm sorry for everything. I didn't know that me hating myself or whatever was getting in the way of... of us. I can't expect to make things work with you if I can't even make things work with myself. Then me leaving you like that in Tacoma was super fucked up. I'm sorry."

"You're right," she agreed. "It was _super_ fucked up. What you did was worse than anything you could have told me. I'd rather have you take and misinterpret every little thing I say rather than choose not to listen to me at all."

"I know," he said sternly.

"So what's making you man enough to apologize now?" she challenged.

"Why do I always need a specific reason with you, Leah?" he asked. "Why can't I just wanna do the right thing? What's wrong with wanting things to be okay between us?"

"You know I don't like to trust men that much," she said quietly. "They lie to me. They're full of empty promises and false hope."

"I'm not Paul," he told her.

"God, _I know_ , but that's the fucked up thing about this. You always say you're not Paul, but you could easily turn into him. You could fuck up, Jake. You could break your promises."

"But I _won't._ "

"There's no way for you to prove that, though, and I'm not in the mood to waste time on something that's not even worth it."

"It'll take time," Jacob told her, "but then you'll know we're worth it. You just gotta believe me first."

"How?"

Jacob was about to speak when the twinkling beginning of "Dreaming of You" by Selena began to play idly over the restaurant radio.

"'Cause this one's for you," he told her, a sudden mischievous smile on his face.

"Jake, what the fu—," she started to say, but he had already gotten up and dashed to the front counter of the restaurant. He leaned against it and asked the jaded cook if he could turn up the music. Leah, too afraid to look, just let her face fall into her hands. Selena's gorgeous voice soared through the restaurant, and just underneath that voice, Leah could hear the murmurings of other people. "What the fuck is this guy doing?"

Leah looked up, and Jacob was standing on top of the counter. He held his arm out as he loudly—and badly—serenaded her.

" _And I wish on a star,"_ he sang, _"that somewhere you are thinking of me, too."_

"Get down, Jake," Leah said, fully embarrassed.

He jumped down from the stool and loudly landed on his feet, shocking the other guests, when the song reached the first chorus. He began to slowly make his way over to her as he sang badly and dancing even worse. Leah could imagine Selena rolling over in her grave if she had to hear this.

" _'Cause I'm dreaming of you tonight. Till tomorrow, I'll be holding you tight."_

"Stop," she said severely.

" _And there's nowhere in the world I'd rather be... Than here in my room, dreaming about you and me."_

Everybody in the restaurant was watching them, and when he finally got to her, he reached out for her hands. She just crossed her arms and scowled at him.

"C'mon, Lee," he teased. "It's your song."

"Not when _you_ sing it," she countered.

"I'll stop singing if you dance with me. You know it's your song."

It _was_ her song. It had been her song since she was a little kid. He knew that. Everybody knew that.

So because it was her song, she took his hands and got up from her chair. He had stopped singing, and he held her close as they swayed together in that Waffle House at one in the morning. He had his hand on her exposed back, and she wrapped her own hands around the back of his neck. She pressed her cheek to his soft button-up and shut her eyes. For the time being, she forgot where she was, but she remembered everything she loved about Jacob, her solid 9.

Jacob was grounded and strong. He knew what he wanted, and he knew how to get it without harming others. He was so gentle, so harmless, and with such good intentions. Leah knew she could be overpowering, but he knew how to deal with it. He knew how to handle it most of the time, and when he needed to fix something, he always did. She loved him because she didn't have to work to keep up with him. They were almost equals. She could be too much at times, but that was what he needed. Most importantly, he was real and he knew how to keep his word.

The song ended, and the two of them were kicked out of the Waffle House immediately because of Jacob's disruption.

"Thank you," Leah said as they were walking back to the motel. "For everything."

"No problem," Jacob replied. "Did I tell you that I did choir in middle school?"

"No way."

"You're right—I didn't."

They both laughed.

"So, do you believe me?" he finally asked.

Leah shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."

"I serenade you with your favorite song in front of a Waffle House crowd at 1AM," he said, "and you _guess_ you believe me?"

"Jake, that was great. You should never sing again, but it was great." She paused. "But, yeah, I guess I believe you. I definitely forgive you. I won't ever forget what you've done in the past, and you're perfectly entitled to never forget what I've done, but I forgive you. I just don't think we should jump into a relationship again. I think that's part of the reason why we didn't work out before."

He thought on that for a second. Leah Clearwater did not want him in the same way that she used to. What surprised him the most was that his heart wasn't breaking at this very fact. He didn't care about being adored by Leah; he just didn't want to be hated by her. In time, they could date again, but it would never be a possibility if she never gave their friendship a chance. Then again, some people were just better off as friends. As supportive and loyal as he was, he and Leah might be among those people. Much to his surprise, this didn't mean the end of the world for him. Not anymore.

"Do you think we can work out as friends?" he wondered. "At least, for now."

She looked at him. "I don't ever wanna be on bad terms with you again, Jake. So, yes."

He smiled. "Thank you, Lee."

She smiled back. "No problem."

They headed back to the motel, and they each felt the weight of the world being lifted from their shoulders.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I'll try to update soon._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	78. LXXVIII

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. If you didn't read the last chapter, go back. Right now. This chapter is a little different from other ones, but I had a nice time writing it.  
_

 _Enjoy._

 **LXXVIII.**

 _i feel you, pretty baby, feel me_

* * *

The car configurations changed again as the group moved into Florida, rolling ten deep, and the general disposition of the group was happier. They had managed to melt into one coherent, content unit. It reminded them all of when they were kids. The car groups were in the original formations, except Sam rode with Quil, Embry, Jacob, and Seth. He was partially annoyed and heartbroken, but he was fully immersed in the creative process that he was witnessing.

Quil and Embry were actually recording a mixtape. They had planned it a while back since Quil was always rapping about something, but it was the isolation factor of the road trip that had gotten them to start. Embry had brought his laptop, Quil had bought a microphone, and with the help of a semi-decent smart phone app, they were making beats and recording songs. Embry was more about the production aspect, and Quil supplied the lyrics.

On the way to Daytona Beach, Quil was writing rhymes in the backseat, behind Embry, when a light bulb went off in his head. When he wasn't being consumed by depression and guilt over murdering Jasper, he could be really creative and productive.

"I think I just got a title for the mixtape," he said, tapping Embry on the shoulder.

"You don't have have a stage name to drop it under," Jacob, who was driving, told him.

"You're late," Seth told Jacob as he sat between Sam and Embry. "When you were busy getting kicked out of a Waffle House, Quil came up with Delinquent V."

Jacob smiled. He didn't have any regrets about serenading Leah—except for the fact that they weren't exactly dating now. But they were okay now. _He_ was okay because they were okay.

"Delinquent V?" he asked Quil. "Your name doesn't even have a 'V' in it."

"Yeah, but 'Delinquent' has a 'Q' in it," Quil replied. "And the 'V' sounds good, but it's also a five. You know, 'cause I'm Quil Ateara _the fifth._ "

"Oh, shit," Jacob said. "That's actually not bad."

"That's the last time you clowns try to doubt me," Quil said. "Anyway, Emb, I got a title."

"Give it to me," Embry said.

" _98350_."

"That's real original," Sam muttered.

"You trying to doubt me again, clown?" Quil asked him. "It's actually hella original. What do you think, Emb?"

"I mean, I guess it's original," Embry replied. "No one's gonna remember it because it's a zip code for an irrelevant reservation, but it's alright."

"I didn't wanna name the mixtape after one of the tracks. I hate that shit 'cause it's so lazy."

"Did you narrow down the tracks?" Jacob wondered.

"It's not down to thirteen yet," Quil said. "Right now, I'm at..." He flipped through a few pages of his rhyme book. "Twenty-two."

"God _damn_ ," Embry said. "That's a lot of songs."

"I've got a lot to say. We've still gotta do Paul's interview, too, though. We should finish that as soon as possible."

For the mixtape, as a taste of what Quil called "artistic shit," he and Embry would ask everybody in the group, individually, how they were feeling in that very moment. Nobody outside of this car knew what Quil and Embry were working on, or why they were recording their responses. Quil and Embry planned on splicing the recordings up and scattering them throughout the mixtape, as samples or otherwise. Quil had a vision, and a huge part of that vision was the people he had grown up with. If he could get through the rest of this road trip without killing himself, then the project might just be good.

While Quil had gotten a couple jobs, gotten out of the badlands for the first time in his entire life, and gotten hit with creativity due to being out on the road, he hadn't been able to run away from what he'd done. He didn't seem to be a suspect, but the country wasn't over the murder of Jasper Cullen. Jasper's face didn't plague every newspaper or news special on TV anymore like it had when it had first happened, but every week, there seemed to be a new interview with his father, the doctor, or even his brother, the Ivy League pre-med student who Quil used to sell weed to.

It was all messing with Quil's head. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw Jasper's surprised expression. He saw the hole in his forehead. He saw the twenty dollars that he had stolen that night, along with Jasper's life. Everybody else was well into spring, but Quil's mind was still stuck in the last day of winter. He could sit on the beach in Florida, right under the sun, but he would still feel cold. Quil wasn't that good at hiding his emotions; he wore his heart and his thoughts and his entire being out on his sleeve. If he was suffering, the world would know. But at the same time, he felt like he was screaming underwater. Nobody could hear him. Nobody could save him.

He was drowning.

* * *

"What's this even for?" Paul asked as Embry got the digital voice recorder ready. They had made it to Daytona Beach after a 440 mile drive from Atlanta with virtually no stops except for gas and food. They had all just settled in their oceanfront hotel, and Paul had managed to escape to the shore.

He had been sitting alone with a box of cigarettes and a lighter, contemplating yet again whether or not he should relapse into his old habit. He supposed that his lungs were already fucked up, so it wouldn't mean anything, but he _knew_ it would piss off Bella. He was positive it would. Then again, maybe one cigarette wouldn't piss her off too much. But at the same time, he was a chain smoker, and it wasn't even because he was stressed out all the time.

He didn't know _what_ the fuck was wrong with him, in all honesty, but he was glad that Embry had found him. When Paul remembered that he had people around him who he loved, he remembered who he was, and he remembered that he was way more than his old addiction. He was Paul fucking Lahote. His ego was through the roof, but it was with reason.

"It's just for a little project," Embry replied. "Kind of a scrapbook, but less lame. Just don't tell anybody, alright?"

"Don't worry about it," Paul said. "Okay. So you're gonna interview me?"

"I'm gonna just ask you a couple questions." He held out the digital voice recorder. "You ready?"

"Yeah."

Embry cleared his throat and then pressed the _record_ button. "How are you?"

"I'm good," Paul said, not sure if he believed it. But then he looked past Embry, past everybody on the beach, and found the Atlantic Ocean. He shoved all the other irrelevant thoughts in his head someplace else, and he found Bella. He found peace. "I'm good," he repeated, more sure of himself.

 _That's what they all say,_ Embry thought. Prior to Paul's interview, everybody had initially said something similar to _good._ Bella had said that verbatim. Sam had said that he was fine.

"How are you _really_ doing?" Embry asked.

"I'm really doing good," Paul responded, looking at Embry. "Everything feels just right."

"Why?"

"'Cause..." Paul looked back to the ocean again. "'Cause I'm on the beach, I don't have to run anymore, and my best fuckin' friend is having my baby. That's why everything feels just right."

Embry stopped recording. He was silent for a moment before he finally said, "That's perfect."

Paul nodded, and he could hardly believe he had been completely, one hundred percent honest.

He didn't have to run anymore. He didn't want to.

* * *

Leah had gotten tired of the Deep South by the time they had all made it to Daytona Beach. The driving—full of blue skies, open roads, and pure, unadulterated sunshine—had been easy, but she was starting to miss the Pacific Northwest. She missed the attitude that she had been brought up by and condoned in her everyday life. Plain old politeness was now in place of the classic _Have a nice day somewhere else_ vibe that she had known all her life.

She'd seen and done a lot by the time they made it to Daytona Beach. She'd gone skinny-dipping in the Gulf of Mexico. She'd had enough fried food to never be hungry again. She'd gotten kicked out of a Waffle House, but she didn't have any regrets. She'd gotten a nice tan. She'd taken aesthetically pleasing pictures in front of a large handful of buildings and motel swimming pools.

She'd seen a lot of Kim, too. Leah was starting to think she had seen Kim more on this trip than she had ever seen herself in the mirror. From the mere exposure of Kim's presence, she got more and more gorgeous to Leah. It wasn't fair. Kim had always been the prettiest person Leah knew, but this was almost getting out of hand. With her dark brown curls turning lighter due to the sun and freckles developing across her nose area, Kim looked more like her mom now than ever, except she looked happier. She _was_ happier.

Seeing Kim happy made Leah happy. Kim had been right; they were a package deal. One of them couldn't be happy without the other being happy. They coexisted on the same wavelength, and Leah wouldn't want it any other way. Leah didn't know exactly what she wanted, but she knew that Kim was all she would ever need. It was only clear.

This was made even more clear on that first night in Daytona. While Leah could handle the South with Kim, she still missed the North and her Northern tendencies, which included watching _Selena_ at least once a week. She had brought her DVD with her, but hadn't been able to find the chance to use it until now. It was 2AM when she was trying to operate the hotel room DVD player without waking up Kim, but then she managed to loudly drop the DVD case in the process.

"You could have _tried_ to be a little quieter," Kim said.

Leah turned around, facing the bed that they shared. "Shit, I thought you were asleep."

"Ugh, I wish," Kim groaned, sitting up.

Leah picked up the DVD case and put the DVD in the player. Then she took the remote and got back into the bed. "It's just too damn hot back here," she said.

Kim scooted over next to Leah, at the edge of the bed. "God, I know. I should have conditioned for this heat before coming out here."

They were silent for a little while, but it wasn't awkward. They just waited for the main menu of the DVD to load. Leah played the movie, but she kept the volume low. She could quote it word for word, anyway.

"I still haven't heard the result of Wafflegate," Kim said, running a hand through her hair. "Did you patch things up with Jacob?"

Leah laughed a little too hard. "Fucking Wafflegate," she said. "You should've been there—it was wild. But, yeah, me and Jacob are good. I've just been thinking about it, though, and I wish I was still a virgin."

"Why?"

"Men think their dicks are important enough to change women, and somehow, that shit actually works. Dick ruins lives."

"Uh-huh, honey."

They both laughed. Leah then realized she didn't have to miss home if Kim was with her.

"Thanks for being in my life, Kim," she said, looking down at the pattern of the comforter. "Thanks so much."

"No, thank _you_ for being around all this time," Kim replied. "You've never gone anywhere, no matter how distant I got, and I appreciate that."

Leah exhaled deeply, the light bouncing off the TV and illuminating the side of her face as she turned to Kim. "I guess we're just a couple of soul mates."

"Yeah," Kim agreed. "I used to have the biggest thing for you, you know."

Leah tried to act like she wasn't surprised. "Really?"

"Yeah. It was kind of embarrassing."

"Oh, 'cause loving me is so embarrassing, huh?" Leah teased.

Kim couldn't help but smile. "Shut _up_ ," she said. "It was just so embarrassing because I didn't know what to _do_ about it. It didn't go away after high school, and honestly, I don't even know if it's fully gone away yet."

"Well, are you gonna kiss me to find out or what?" Leah asked.

Kim hesitated for a moment, but she finally leaned in to close the space between them. With closed eyes, she started out slow, just barely tasting Leah's bottom lip. Leah tasted like how Kim had always imagined she would taste, and more. Kim tried to take it slow and tried to be patient, but she had almost been _waiting_ for this moment. Leah tasted like a dream, and Kim didn't want to wake up. She finally stopped, however, when she realized that Leah was staying still.

By the time Kim pulled away, Leah's eyes were just reopening.

Leah, with a slight smile, looked like she was waiting for something. "Do it again," she said.

Kim didn't hesitate this time, and she went back in with all the passion in the world. Anybody but Leah would have been completely fazed. This time, Leah responded with matching passion and enthusiasm. Her hands were suddenly all over Kim—in her curly hair, running along her body without being too rough—and Kim's hands were on Leah's cheeks, keeping her close. They were both breathing heavily. Leah thought her own heart was gonna burst from her chest.

But when they broke away and looked at each other, they both ended up laughing.

"I think I know now," Kim said, giggling. "I don't have a thing for you like that anymore."

Leah's laugh was breathy. "Yeah, I'm good. I still think we're soul mates, though. Platonic ones, but still soul mates."

"No, yeah, we're definitely soul mates," Kim agreed. "It'd be stupid for us _not_ to be."

"Yeah." Leah trailed off, but then regained the courage to carry on. "Kim, I'm not really sure what I'm doing, or if I know who I wanna be with, or if I even wanna be with _anybody_ in a serious way right now, but I just want you to know that if you ever decide that I'm not a crazy-ass for wanting to spend the rest of my life with you, then say no more. I'm here, and I'll make sure that we'll be the cutest. I'll do all the cheesy shit, whether we're platonic or not. I'll stand outside your window with a speaker bumping Destiny's Child."

"Three members or four?" Kim asked.

"Four."

Kim grinned. "Now I know it's real. You're crazy, Lee—like, you're wild—but I love you." She then took Leah's hand in her own and laced their fingers.

With her gaze down at their hands, and she didn't even feel stupid for smiling this much or for this long. "If we're gonna be anything beyond platonic, though," she added, "you've _gotta_ cut your nails first."

They both chuckled, but Kim's smile quickly faded.

"Are you okay?" Leah asked.

"If we become anything more than platonic," Kim began, "I don't just wanna be your sweet fling."

"I told you I'd stand outside your window blasting Destiny's Child," Leah said. "How much more commitment do you need?"

Kim let go of Leah's hand and turned to face her head on. "You know what I mean," she replied. "A girl kisses another girl and then it doesn't mean anything. It's for practice. It's a phase and then they end up separating and marrying some guy and then—"

"Kim," Leah said sternly. "Calm down—you're stressing yourself out and you don't need that. And, anyway, I'm not Bella."

"This isn't about her. This is about us."

Leah just looked at Kim, and Kim looked like she was about to cry for a second.

"I don't know what I want," Leah told her, "but I want you to be here while I figure it out."

"What will happen when you figure it out?"

"I… I don't know," Leah admitted. She had never been unsure about anything in her entire life. It had always been one way or the other, but Kim always had the power to keep her grounded, even in the lack of gray area. Her eyes flashed to the television for a moment. The fact that they were still watching _Selena_ —a movie they had been watching since elementary school, their comfort movie, the one thing that always kept them together, their comfort movie, the only thing they'd known as long as they had known each other—was proof that Kim kept her grounded. Giving up on Kim would be like giving up on history.

Sometimes, history didn't mean anything. That had been the case for Sam and Emily, who had stuck together for history's sake and nothing else. But other times, history was everything.

What would Kim and Leah be if they weren't historical?

"I just want you here," Leah told her. "Like always."

"I want you here, too," Kim said.

"Then let's just be here, okay?"

Kim finally let go. "Okay," she said.

It was 2AM, and they were watching _Selena_ again. They laughed. They cried. They were still angry at Selena's murderer. It was just like old times. Just like when they were seven and ten and thirteen and sixteen and nineteen, except now, they held hands the entire time.

Leah didn't mind change, but she didn't prefer it, either. It was 2AM, and she found her sweet medium.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I'll try to update when I can. The reviews are especially atrocious rn, though - it'd be nice to receive some indication that I'm not talking to myself._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	79. LXXIX

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. So it's been a little while but I'm back. I hope you guys have been well._

 _Previously in Static: Realizations are being realized and some ends are coming together. If you didn't read the last chapter, go back. It's one of my favorites and it gives a little background to this one._

 _This chapter contains: Emily x Embry, more Quil, and a lot of honesty. Peep the callbacks to chapter 69._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXXIX.**

 _we'll go down this road 'til it turns from color to black and white_

* * *

Since she had let go of Sam, Emily felt like she could see in color again. Her spirit was back. She hadn't felt this way since she'd gone to Venice, and while that stint had been all sorts of intoxicated fun, it had been too bright. Venice had been in blinding hues of neon green and pink. It had been dazzling and dizzying, but she loved New York more. Manhattan was vibrant in a sober way that she could fully appreciate, full of eclectic people.

Manhattan plagued Emily with a sense of sonder like no other. Each passerby made her _feel_ something. Despite her constantly being in a mood, Emily didn't have a wide range of feelings—she liked to keep things low. Underground. If she were to have feelings at all, not everybody would know about them. She had saved specific emotions for Sam, who had been emotionally demanding to be around. But that had been in the badlands—Sam was behind her now. In Manhattan, Emily wasn't sure _what_ she was feeling, but there was certainly a lot of it.

Emily was starting to feel something for Embry, too. She had never really gotten over him, but she hadn't broken up with Sam to be with him. She had broken up with Sam to be with herself. She was proud to admit this, but somewhere in her heart lived this Embry drawer that she couldn't get locked shut. She'd lost the key and the drawer was just rattling to get open, pushing against her straining, fragile fingernails.

She still loved Embry. No matter what happened to her, to him, to _them_ , she would always love him. Not because they had history—which she didn't consider a real reason to stick around—but because she simply trusted him. He was a trustworthy guy. Dependable, too, even though his acts of heroism often went ignored by most of the group until they needed him the most.

It was 2AM, but if Emily and Embry knew anything about New York City, it was that it never slept. It never went dark. It never shut off. Overlooking Times Square from her dark hotel room, sonder continued to plague Emily like the most bittersweet disease. Everybody just on the streets below her had their own agendas—their own lives. Maybe they were trying to get into that club that Leah, Kim, Quil, and Jacob had snuck into tonight with fake IDs. Maybe they were just trying to get home.

While the group had managed to melt into one coherent, content unit during the day, they still found themselves divided at night. Bella and Paul—as expected—were their own thing. Emily frequently heard them having loud, passionate, detailed sex through the paper-thin walls of the various motels they had been occupying, but she had learned to drown them out. Then Bella and Paul would talk to each other all night like the best of friends. Sam and Seth didn't do much besides watch TV. Leah, Kim, Quil, and Jacob were always looking to get into the various clubs that this great country had to offer, into mild amounts of trouble without actually getting in trouble. (Embry had gone out with them once in Atlanta, on the night of Wafflegate, but it really wasn't for him.) Leah and Kim just wanted to dance. Nobody would question the state of their relationship as they grinded on each other in the dim lighting of a nightclub. Jacob, who wasn't over Leah but wasn't exactly about her anymore, had always had trouble with feeling _alive_ , so he would do almost anything to get there while keeping his head. Quil didn't mind losing his head—he was used to it, and he always got it back.

"I can tell you like it here," Embry said. He sat on Emily's bed, his laptop open and an earbud in his left ear. He was listening to the tracks recorded so far for _98350._ He had a notebook and pen next to him.

Emily found Embry so brilliant and interesting. He was a genius. He took this project with a technical approach rather than a musical one. He had his own little code for noticing all the little errors and taking note of which songs they would have to rerecord. The mixtape was far from perfect, and it shouldn't _have_ to be perfect, but Embry was trying to make it damn close.

Emily finally pried herself away from the window and sat next to him on the bed. "I can tell you love being a producer," she said.

He shook his head. "I don't even know music," he admitted. "Imagine if we booked a real recording studio. This whole thing is gonna come out so ghetto, Em."

"Isn't that the point?" she asked. "Delinquent V is ghetto."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Is he giving you production credit?" she wondered. "With Jake and Sam and all of them?"

"He can cite my name or whatever," he said, finally turning away from the laptop screen. "It's not like it's gonna make any money. It's just Quil."

Emily smiled sadly. "It's just Quil," she echoed. "Do you even want to help him with the mixtape?"

"I do," he said, though he looked like he had to think about it for a moment. "He's got a huge concept going on, and it's not just about him. It's about… Well, it's about us. All of us. I like how he trusts me and Jake and Seth and our lack of know-how. And honestly, it's a healthier outlet than what he usually does." _As well as a distraction from the fact that he literally murdered somebody._ Embry couldn't give that away, though—that was between him and Quil and the badlands.

"I think he's definitely capable of doing both," Emily said. "I bet he's high right now."

A sad expression washed over Embry's face. "Yeah," he agreed. "I bet he is."

"Can I listen?" Emily asked. "Or is it a surprise?"

Embry smiled. "Here, I'll show you a couple demos."

Embry clicked on an audio file and gave Emily the other earbud. Emily saw that the song was titled "Bambi."

She turned to him. "So Quil still isn't over Kim," she assumed. Quil had loved Kim since the dawn of time and he still loved her, even though he knew he'd be living in the friend-zone until the day he died and maybe even a day after that.

Embry nodded. "It's one of the best so far, though," he told her. "I promise."

He played the clip, and Emily believed him. The track, "Bambi," was a quiet opener with little instrumentation, and the beat was made entirely of soft finger snaps. Quil was even singing the hook, and it wasn't awful. She hoped the final cut wouldn't be too different.

Embry then played another demo of a track that still didn't have a real title. The lyrics were about Quil growing up in La Push. He didn't sound half bad, but the production was what really amazed Emily. Despite not having much to work with, the music was atmospheric. It was cinematic.

It was Embry Call, and it was fucking brilliant.

When the clip was over, Emily removed her earbud and just looked at Embry. She was trying to conceal her widest, happiest, dumbest smile.

"What?" he asked.

"You're a genius," she told him.

He was in a full-fledged grin, and he was so happy she liked the music that he was going to kiss her. He was really going to kiss her. Then they were spooked by a loud, ominous thud against the door.

Embry got up to get the door, and Emily followed. The second he twisted the door knob and opened the door, Quil came colliding into his body.

Embry quickly caught him. "Whoa," he said. "What the fuck happened to you?"

"He's drunk," Emily said as Embry helped him into the room. She turned on the lights. "Obviously."

"Shit, man, you're burning up," Embry said as he tried to get Quil to sit on the other bed in the room. Quil ended up on his back, wide-eyed and staring up at the ceiling.

"I'm in your room," Quil said slowly, sluggishly. "Right?"

"Yes," Embry replied.

Quil turned over to his stomach, laughing like an idiot. "I can't believe I fuckin' made it. I just got into this big-ass banana and ended up here. Homeboy driving it was nice, though."

"A banana?" Emily asked him.

"What are you on?" Embry asked. "Are you just drunk? Is it weed? It can't be weed."

"Acid," Quil said. Then he started laughing again. "LSD."

Embry and Emily just exchanged an incredulous look.

"Chance the Rapper recorded his first mixtape on acid," Quil said. "Trippin' the whole time. Did you guys know that?"

"You're not Chance the Rapper," Embry told him, his voice gentler now that he knew Quil was on a trip. "You're Delinquent V."

"I'm motherfuckin' Delinquent V," Quil said. "Bring out the mic, Embry. Pull up a beat. I'm _the_ motherfuckin' Delinquent V."

"That's probably not a good idea," Embry replied. "How long ago did you drop acid?"

"A couple hours ago," Quil said. "We were in the club."

"Did Kim and Leah and Jake _not_ notice you leave?" Emily asked.

Quil sighed dramatically. "Guess not." Then he was gone. He was laying on the bed singing to himself. He was singing his own song, "Bambi," and suddenly, he was crying like a child.

 _Why did it have to be acid?_ Embry thought.

"What's going on, man?" he asked Quil.

"She looked so beautiful tonight," Quil replied, not bothering to wipe his tears away. "She always looks beautiful, but tonight I wanted to marry her."

"Who, Kim?" Emily asked.

His tears rolled onto the comforter underneath him. "Mm-hm."

"You've gotta get over her," Embry told him. "You've liked her since we were, what, nine?"

"Eight. Embry, she's just so _fine._ Every time I think I'm over her, I look at her and it's a wrap."

Emily sighed. "Quil, you've gotta get over it. Kim doesn't even like boys. Kim likes astrology and Britney Spears."

Quil's tears came running out even faster. "I wanna fuckin' kill myself," he said.

Emily's voice was gentle. "No, don't say that," she said. "There are plenty of girls out there. Straight ones."

"I really fuckin' killed someone," Quil said softly, like he was talking to himself.

Emily looked to Embry, confused.

 _Shit,_ Embry thought. He didn't say anything.

Emily looked back to Quil. "What was that?" she asked.

"I killed someone," Quil said, his voice clearer. "Jasper Cullen. The white boy from Forks. Shot him clear in the forehead."

"That's crazy talk," Emily said. She looked at Embry again. " _Right?_ "

Embry just shook his head. "He's right," he murmured.

"I snapped," Quil said, his face drowning in tears. He was clutching his own body like he was afraid he'd lose himself. Maybe he already had lost himself. "I just snapped. What if they found the gun?"

"They didn't," Embry said sternly. "We buried it in the middle of nowhere. It's gone."

"It's not gone, though. I'm not gone and you're not gone but Jasper _is_ gone."

All that Embry could do was shake his head, but he knew he was lying to himself.

* * *

Emily and Embry ended up pulling an all-nighter making sure Quil didn't do anything stupid for the remainder of his trip. All he really did was sink into a void of self-hatred and "what if" statements about Kim. He cried for almost the entire time. It was a sorry sight.

The next day was the group's last day in New York, and they were still on schedule. Emily and Embry ended up wasting the day away by catching up on sleep, but they needed it. New York would always be there. Emily knew the city would call her back someday.

They woke up in the same bed at around six in the evening, but it wasn't awkward. It was merely them.

"Thanks for sticking around last night," Embry said, turning around to face her. "You didn't have to deal with all that."

"Quil's still my friend," Emily replied. "It's what we do."

Somehow, Embry managed to strike up the courage to admit to Emily something that had been on his mind for the longest time. "I never got over us breaking up," he told her. "I always thought we would work it out. I just wish I knew what happened."

"It's not too late," she said.

"You and Sam aren't together, are you?" he asked.

"He didn't tell you?"

"He's too afraid to admit it."

Emily wanted to be surprised. She tried really, _really_ hard. "That sounds like him," she said.

After getting her spirit broken countless times by Sam, Emily had never believed she had the power to do the same to him. Then again, that was the way it had always been with them, throughout the years—give and take. Maybe she could take after him and become a little more possessive in regards to her feelings.

* * *

It was late when everyone started to head further up the East Coast. This next stretch would be quicker than previous ones, and then they would be heading west. While they had all seen and done a lot, the badlands didn't sound so bad anymore. They had work to return to. Some of them had school.

So from this point on, there was a lot of driving. Various sleep schedules got even further wrecked along the way. Somewhere between Chicago and Minneapolis, Embry was driving, and Sam was the only other person in the car who was awake. They already had a few things in common, a big one being that they were half-brothers, but the topic of conversation managed to fall on the girl who was asleep in one of the other cars. It started out as awkward as anyone would expect.

"I still don't know what I did to lose her," Sam told Embry, his deep voice hushed. "I gave her everything. Everything I did was for us and nobody else, but I still lost her."

"I think what happened," Embry replied, dead tired, "was that you forgot about her. You let her fade away."

Sam still had the idea that Emily was into Embry, but he tried not to let it show. He was still more hurt by Emily than jealous of Embry. He felt small and pathetic when he asked Embry, "You think I can get her back?"

Embry didn't want to spare what was left of Sam's feelings. "Nah," he said. "She's too far gone. It's for the best."

He wasn't wrong.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Up next: homecoming._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	80. LXXX

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. Y'all, we're in the final stretch of the story! We made it. All 3 of us. I can't wait to be finished. There are 88 chapters in total, though, so we're not quite there yet. I enjoyed writing this chapter. It featured more Bella than I planned, but it was for the better. (Try not to gloss over the minimal Paul x Bella fluff; there are some important details.)_

 _Enjoy._

 **LXXX.**

 _let's have a toast to the good life_

* * *

Life on Earth—life in the badlands—continued once everybody get back. The road trip had been entertaining and full of memories, but it had been long. It had been long past time to go home. They had jobs. They had school. They had lives to get together.

Going back to doing the same old thing in Forks was comforting for Leah, but she soon found herself feeling somehow inadequate to Seth despite the fact that they had entirely different agendas. In early-June, Seth graduated at the top of his class, and while Leah was happy for him and had certainly cried at the end of his valedictorian speech, she couldn't avoid the feeling of jealousy that she was faced with. She also felt completely out of the family picture.

On Seth's graduation night, Leah, Seth, Sue, and Charlie had gone out to dinner in Port Angeles. Bella had been invited, but she had politely declined; she did, however, promise that she would see them all soon. Then again, she was also the queen of broken promises.

At dinner, Leah found out that Seth planned to go to UCLA in the fall. Sue had casually mentioned it in a conversation that Leah had never been in on until now. At the table of the Italian restaurant, Leah glared at her mother, who was still basking in her newlywed glow.

"Oh, Lee, what's that look for?" Sue asked.

"You guys have _got_ to stop keeping secrets from me," she said. She looked at Charlie. "Did you know Seth's going to UCLA?"

Charlie couldn't hide his smile. "Sorry, kid," he said. "We thought he'd tell you."

Seth, who had never looked happier to eat the highly-Americanized ravioli in front of him, chewed and swallowed quickly. "My bad, Lee," he said.

Leah gave him a look.

"No, really, my bad. I swear I told you on the road trip or something."

"How was that?" Sue asked. "It kind of just happened."

"Paul's very generous," Leah said to her curtly. She turned to Seth. "But, Seth, you're moving to L.A. That's so crazy. I always knew you were smart, but I thought you'd wanna go to U-Dub or something."

"I got into there, too. Oh, and Stanford, USC…"

"Oh, my _God_."

"Keep in mind that you don't live together anymore," Charlie said. "It's probably been hard for him to get a hold of you with you living in Forks."

"Yeah, but—"

"C'mon, Leah, let's not make your brother's graduation night all about you," Sue said.

"Why California, Seth?" Leah asked him.

"It just _called_ to me, you know?" he replied. "It's where I need to be."

Leah was overly happy for him, but she had to make herself refrain from rolling her eyes. _What a Libra,_ she thought.

"And they offered you a full-ride scholarship," Sue added, beaming. She had always been so proud of her boy. Then again, ACLs could break (as Leah knew very well) and cost someone a scholarship, whereas brains couldn't—at least, not as easily, and definitely not for Seth.

So Leah let Sue have her moment with her boy. That night, Leah was fully able to get over the mere fact that her time had passed to still be the old Leah, high school Leah—Lightning Leah.

Change wasn't going to hurt her.

* * *

Change wasn't hurting Bella, either, but she was adjusting to it more rapidly than Leah was. Without taking much time to breathe upon returning from the road trip, Bella and Paul spent a good part of June getting ready for a lot of changes. They planned to move in August, but they still had to find out where, and Seattle was not specific enough.

After some hasty yet thorough searching throughout the first half of June, Paul and Bella had settled on an expensive house in the neighborhood of Laurelhurst, on the waterfront. Paul could not mention the area without also using the word "bougie."

"Quit being so difficult," Bella said, playfully punching him in the stomach when the realtor, an older white lady who still didn't seem to take them seriously, was out of sight. "If you think it's so _bougie_ , we can always live somewhere else."

He leaned against the kitchen island, and he tried to imagine himself actually living here. Once he stopped seeing himself as the poor kid from Tacoma who got beat by his dad, he could see it. The house was like a fantasy, TV home with gorgeous views of Lake Washington, five bedrooms, a giant sundeck—all the works, and taken up to eleven, too.

"Oh, _I'm_ the one being difficult?" he asked her with raised eyebrows and an incredulous smile. "You're the one who just _has_ to move in August, like that's some special month."

"I just wanna get settled as soon as we can," she said. "You know we're gonna have someone else to look after, right?"

"I think about it probably three-and-a-half times a day," he said. "But for real, it's not the house that's the problem. The _house_ is fine. It's the neighborhood."

"The bougie neighborhood," she said.

" _The bougie-ass neighborhood,_ " he echoed. "I don't know, I just think we'd have to drop off the kid at Fremont or Ballard just to get him a little cultured."

"Or her."

"Right, or her."

Bella smiled. "You don't want him making friends at the country club?" she asked, echoing the realtor, who had recommended the nearby country club to them in order to convince them that she was finally taking them seriously.

" _Goddammit,_ " Paul sighed, exasperated.

Bella giggled. "He—she— _they_ will be fine," she said. "But we've gotta have somewhere to live first."

"Tell me, Bella," he began, his voice quiet. "Do you like it here, in this house?"

"I love it," she said.

"And not just because you're trying to get out of La Push by August."

She punched him in the arm a little too hard. He winced. "You're too damn aggressive, Swan," he said.

"I don't play when it comes to houses, Lahote. I watch HGTV and my Pinterest board is _very_ detailed."

"Then it's yours," he said.

She raised an eyebrow. "You're okay with moving here in August?"

"I'd love to live here in this big ol' house with you, the baby, and ten more of 'em."

She smiled. "We've gotta get this one out first," she said, and then she pulled him in for an embrace. He kissed her, and for a moment, the proclaimed bougie life ahead of her didn't seem so bad.

* * *

A couple of days later, Bella sat in her La Push home alone. It was a late Saturday morning, and Paul was in Seattle again, this time to meet with his financial advisers, Kim's uncles. It was sunny outside, but Bella simply had nothing to do. She found herself watching on the couch, playing on her phone, and listening to music. She was content.

Bella was pages and pages deep into the "nursery decorating ideas" tag on Pinterest when she could hear her music starting to fade because she was receiving a call. It was Charlie. She hadn't talked much with him since he and Sue had gotten married, but he was always checking up on her. She ignored him just enough for him to keep calling, but not enough for him to hold a search party for her. She routinely texted him, "I'm fine—just busy!" It was true, but not very.

She waited for him to leave her a voicemail message, but he didn't this time. He was giving up. She was no longer content. She ended up calling Leah, who picked up promptly.

"Are you okay?" Leah answered.

"What, I can't call my sis for fun?" Bella asked, and she could practically see Leah roll her eyes.

"Don't call me 'sis.' What's up?"

"I'm tired of being cooped up in my house," Bella complained. "Wanna go to the beach?"

"That works," Leah said, surprisingly cooperative.

"I'll give you half an hour?"

"Actually, I'm at my mom's house—old house—helping Seth pack." Sue had moved into Charlie's house after they got married (and still, they didn't even know that Paul was going to buy them a house), and Seth was in an odd halfway point. He lived in the Clearwater house for the time being, but the house still needed to be sold, so he was also packing up to move into the Swan home for the summer. At the same time, he was getting ready for L.A. Everybody was just getting used to change. Seth could especially adapt, though.

"Oh, okay," Bella said. "I guess I'll start heading over there. See you soon."

"See ya."

Bella hung up. The last time she had asked Leah to meet up with her at the beach, they had almost killed each other.

 _Funny,_ she thought. It hadn't even been a year yet since that happened.

* * *

Bella was waiting for Leah in the First Beach parking lot. The beach wasn't far, so they had both walked. Bella was surprisingly elated to see Leah. There she was—human contact who wasn't a small child, a coworker, or Paul.

They walked along the beach, feeling the sun beating on them. It was the 21st of June, the summer solstice, and summer had come on time for once. Forks had been able to catch up to the rest of space and time.

"How've you been?" Bella asked.

"Good," Leah replied. "What about you? We missed you back at Seth's graduation dinner."

Bella sighed. "About that," she began.

"Has Charlie been calling you a lot?" Leah wondered.

"Yeah, why?"

"He's been calling me, too, asking if you're okay. I just keep saying you're busy, but I know he's not really buying it. He really wants to have a family dinner—all five of us." Her tone wasn't excited, but it didn't hold resentment, either.

"I wish I could make myself follow through with that," Bella said glumly.

"Are you okay? Like, really."

"Leah, I just feel like I'm keeping this horrible secret from my dad, except that's not even true. Yeah, I moved out and I'm pregnant and engaged, but I'm happy."

Leah refrained from mentioning that Bella was also filthy rich; maybe Paul didn't want Bella to know that she knew that.

"Like, _actually_ happy," Bella continued. "I'm just so afraid he's gonna be surprised and upset once I explain it to him."

"He'll be surprised, for sure," Leah agreed. "I don't know if he'll be upset, though."

"He will be," Bella assured. "He'll try to act like he's not, but he will be."

"Well, if you just get it over with, it won't bother you anymore," Leah suggested. "At the very best, he can't kick you out of the house for running off and getting knocked up."

"Yeah," Bella agreed morbidly. "He doesn't really know who I got knocked up by, either. This whole thing can't get any worse."

Leah shrugged. "Only way to go is up."

"I don't think my skin is thick enough to even try to go up," Bella admitted.

 _God, this girl really hates herself,_ Leah thought. _No wonder she and Jacob were such a shitstorm together._

"C'mon, Bella," Leah said. "Just take it easy and figure it out. Handle it. It'll be okay."

"I'm not gonna be the only one who looks bad here," Bella said. "We traded boyfriends over a pretty short time-span."

"Okay, so first of all," Leah began, "your situation with Paul is not mutually exclusive to my situation with Jacob. I could care less about that."

"You _couldn't_ care less," Bella corrected her, yet again, her tone unbothered.

"You know what I mean," Leah said, annoyed. "And second of all, I'm not dating Jacob."

"I thought Wafflegate solved your problems, but okay."

 _We saw all the relevant parts of the United States and all that anybody chooses to remember is Wafflegate,_ Leah thought.

"Really, Bella," she said, "you've just gotta handle this situation with Charlie. Just handle it. You'll be fine."

"If you say so, Leah." Bella didn't want to admit it yet, but talking about this specific affliction did make her feel a bit better.

They began to head back to where they came from in mostly silence, just feeling the sun as they listened to children laughing and the waves crashing.

"How are you and Kim?" Bella asked.

"Um, I can't really speak for Kim," Leah began, "but I'm fine. I guess she's fine, too."

"No, I meant, like—"

Leah's eyes went wide. "Oh, you think we're together?"

"Since you're not with Jacob, I figured…" Bella trailed off. "I thought it was obvious. Sorry."

 _I'm not you._ "It's okay," Leah replied. The idea of her and Kim together was up in the air at this point, but not in a bad way. They weren't giving in at the moment, but they certainly were _not_ giving up. No matter what happened, they were soul mates. Platonic or not.

Leah's eyes were down at her own hands. She still hadn't cut her fingernails since Daytona Beach. Maybe that was her answer for the day. Maybe once night fell after today—this long period of daytime, the summer solstice, the first _real_ day of summer—she would have a different answer.

She looked back up and focused on the beautiful sight that was the first day of summer.

* * *

When Bella got back home, she called Charlie back. It had taken her telling herself (in Leah's voice, no less) to handle it for about ten minutes, but she finally did it. Charlie answered the phone almost immediately.

"You're alive, kid!" he greeted her.

"I guess I am," she said. "How've you been, Dad? How's everything with Sue?"

"Great," he replied. "Things are real good over here. When are you gonna come visit? We miss you. Leah says you've been busy."

"She's not wrong. I've just been at work all the time. I hardly get a break, it seems."

"Still at the daycare?"

"Yeah."

"Bells, you don't have to be a stranger just because you're busy, okay?" he asked. "You can always come by after work. You know I'll be home."

Bella wanted to cry. She wanted to tell him everything even more, but she ended up chickening out and skating around the truth, as she usually did. "It's just…" she started. "I haven't been around because of my anxiety. It's been bad, Dad."

She wasn't lying—her anxiety had never really gone anywhere—but she wasn't telling the truth, either. She hated herself increasingly by the second, especially since Charlie almost always backed off when she mentioned her mental health.

"I thought you were over it," Charlie said sadly. "I thought you were taking steps and getting your medication—"

"I've been off my meds for a long time," she said, and that was true. "I don't need them anymore, and I'm making things work for myself, but I still haven't been my best. I'll try to come around, but I need to focus on me first."

"I guess I can't fight that," Charlie said.

"Thanks for understanding."

"Just don't be a stranger," he told her again. "Keep calling me when you're feeling okay. Come and visit when you're ready."

"Okay."

"I mean it."

"Okay," she repeated.

"Love you, kid."

"Love you, too."

She hung up, and the tears finally spilled over.

 _If I can't be truthful now, what am I going to do in August?_

The end of summer couldn't feel closer.

* * *

"Maybe we should have opened the window before we had sex," Paul said later that night as he cracked open the window in their bedroom. He was buck-naked and sweaty, and she was in the same condition as she laid in their bed.

"Good plan," she replied. "It's burning up."

He got back into the bed and turned to his side, propping his head up as he stared at her.

"Yes?" she asked.

"We have the house picked out," he said. "All we have to do is go over a few things, pay for it, and then move in."

"What are you asking?"

"Why do you wanna wait until August?" he wondered.

"My job," she admitted. "I really love it there. I love the kids—all of them. Even the snotty-nosed ones. Working at Sunshine Daycare has really opened my eyes up to how kids are and how important it is to bring them up right."

"You can still work at a daycare in Seattle," he suggested.

"Those kids are _bougie_ ," she said. He chuckled in response. "The kids up here, Paul, they've all got something wrong with them, but they're special. I love them."

"You always said they were problem kids. I thought you'd wanna move away even quicker."

"I still love them, though," she said. "And I think I'm actually gonna miss it here. You know, Forks. La Push. Granted, I hated it when I first moved up here. I thought it was the boonies and that no one liked me. All that's still true, but this place has grown on me.

"I never miss anybody I've met, Paul. I never miss anywhere I've been. I just leave places and find new ones. But this is different. I'm gonna miss it here, but at the same time, I know I can always come back."

This was the first time she had ever thought she would miss the badlands. She didn't even know why; it just had this strong pull on her. The badlands were a beacon, but she didn't want to stay away forever. She just didn't want to be kept here forever, either.

"I love you," he told her.

"I love you, too."

They paused for a beat. Then he asked, "Where do you wanna go for our honeymoon?"

"You had me thinking that cross-country road trip was our honeymoon," she said with a mischievous smile on her face.

"You're _funny._ "

"How about Hawaii?" she asked.

"You've been to Hawaii."

"But you haven't."

"Let's do something different, baby girl. Let's go somewhere that neither of us have been."

"You have so many big questions," she said. "We still need to get married first."

"What were you thinking?"

"Courthouse. Two witnesses max. Quick ceremony. Nice blue dress."

"That's so specific," he said.

"Those were my parents."

"They didn't work out, though."

"But still," she replied. "I liked the concept."

They were silent again. Then she asked him, "Does it bother you?"

"Does what bother me?"

"The fact that we can't just go out and get a beer after we get married."

"I'm not bothered by you being pregnant, Bella."

"That's not what I mean. Paul, we're young."

"I think we can handle it."

"Even if you weren't a multimillionaire?" she challenged.

"My mom isn't a multimillionaire and she made it work. Yours did, too."

She pouted.

"What's really wrong?" he asked.

"I wanted the house in Laurelhurst, so we got it. I wanted to move in August just to stay at my job for a little while longer, so we're moving in August. You asked me how I want to get married, and I told you, so we'll probably go to a courthouse."

"Okay, and?" he prompted.

"Isn't there anything _you_ want?"

"I got my road trip."

"I meant about us," she specified.

"Well, we're getting married," he said. "I have you. We're gonna have our baby. There's nothing else I need."

" _Nothing?_ " she repeated. "You're twenty. You don't want to anything big before we get married and move away and have this kid?"

"Trust me, baby girl, I've had my wild days. I've been a crazy-ass since I was three. _This_ is what I'm about now. _This_ is what matters."

She pouted again.

"Don't worry about it," he told her.

And she didn't. She had fallen under his spell yet again. It was the best thing that had happened to her all day because finally, she didn't have to think.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I'll try to update again before the New Year._

 _Thanks as always and happy holidays,_

 _HS_


	81. LXXXI

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight or anything else that may be familiar to you while reading this story._

 _So this is chapter 81 of Static. It's really long (the longest? I think so), so I apologize for that, but it's all within reason. This chapter features: a little bit of everything and everybody._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXXXI.**

 _a little party never hurt no one  
not you and me  
_ _a little party never hurt no one  
_ _we were born to be free_

* * *

One particularly warm night in late-June, Embry found himself knocking on the metal door frame of Quil's basement. He hadn't heard from Quil in a while, and he knew he wasn't at either of his jobs.

When Quil finally answered the door, there was a tired yet wild look in his eyes. "What do you want, Embry?" he asked, his voice lifeless.

"I wanna know what the hell you've been up to," Embry replied. "Are you gonna let me in or not?"

"Come in, I guess."

The second Embry stepped into the basement, Quil locked up the door. He had a newly installed deadbolt added to the frame.

"Paranoid?" Embry asked.

Quil laughed, but it wasn't funny. "Yeah," he said, sitting down on the couch. "You could say that."

"Have you heard anything from—?"

"No," Quil said sternly. "No one's come to me about anything. I've just been so fuckin' paranoid since we got back, though. They're still all over Forks. I still see his brother's face all over TV."

"Who's 'they'?"

Quil nodded over to the door. "You know," he said quietly. "Them."

 _Jesus Christ,_ Embry thought. "Well," he said, trying to distract from Quil's immediate problems, "I checked your Vine account, and your followers are fuckin' _hyped_ over the mixtape."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, and they're mad that they still don't have a release date."

"It's not like they're gonna buy it."

"You're not putting it up for sale," Embry reminded him. "So that's not the point."

"Maybe we should take a break from the mixtape," Quil said. "Seth's about to go to college because he's smart or whatever, and Jake's just left us for dead."

"He works at a garage in Port Angeles now," Embry replied. "Or so I've heard."

"See, that's what pisses me off the most about Jake," Quil said. "He's so fuckin' secretive. He thinks he's better than the rest of us."

"You know he does his own thing," Embry said, his tone semi-defensive. "He doesn't need nine other people to know what he's doing. I'd just say he's low-key." _Just because Jake minds his own business and hasn't killed anyone doesn't mean he thinks he's better than us._

"Nah," Quil said. "He could win the lottery and nobody would even know until he dies."

"Well, we don't need him to finish the mixtape. We're almost done and he hasn't really helped with too much of it, anyway."

"I still think we should take a break."

Embry's voice was blunt. "Are you kidding me?"

"What?"

"There is no way _I'm_ more dedicated to dropping _your_ mixtape than you are. That's not right."

"You're not gonna gain anything if we drop it," Quil said. "Neither of us are. It's just a stupid mixtape."

"Quil, this is about _your life_. You wanted to tell the story about your life and the shit you've been through, so you're gonna tell it. Oh, and I did _not_ listen to you rap about pussy and weed while burning my ass off in a cramped little car in the South for nothing."

Quil just looked up at him. Then he glanced down at his laptop bag. "Is that your laptop?" he asked.

"I wouldn't come here without it."

"Give me the fuckin' mic."

* * *

After reworking some tracks and applying the final touches for the next few days, _98350_ was finally ready. The quality wasn't the best or the most professional, but it was Embry's proudest achievement, and with some convincing involved, it was finally Quil's proudest achievement, too.

Quil and Embry got everyone together on Independence Day, the eve of Quil's birthday, by renting out a big cabin between First Beach and the woods just to throw a party. It was near the cabin where Kim and Jared's latest and final altercation had occurred, but much closer to the beach.

Upon getting out of her car, Kim felt a cool breeze. It chilled her just a little too much, but then she remembered that it was not February. She was not here to meet Jared in an attempt to defend her sexuality and shut him out of her life for good. That had been the hard part, but it was over now. This—an Independence Day party—was the easy part. She looked to Leah, who was getting out of the passenger side, and smiled. Leah smiled back.

 _This is the easy part,_ Kim reminded herself.

La Push was full of avid firework users, so the night sky was filled with red, whites, and blues, illuminating the water. Crackling noises filled the air, so the loud music playing from the cabin didn't stick out much.

When Kim and Leah entered the party, they realized that there were way more than eight other people packed in the cabin.

"Wow," Leah said sarcastically. "I love high school."

They glanced around the living room. In addition to their friend group (minus Jacob), were plenty of other people that neither Kim nor Leah knew. They had to be from Port Angeles or something. Then again, rez parties were never that great, so what was the point in making the drive? There were also a few gaggles of teenage girls in the area. Leah could see the braces from a mile away. For a moment, she thought she saw Claire, her cousin (well, Emily's cousin on her dad side, but that was the same thing), but Embry soon distracted her.

He pulled both Leah and Kim into hugs. "Thanks for coming through, you guys," he said.

"Of course," Kim replied. "I heard this is also Quil's birthday party?"

"Yeah, but don't let him know that," Embry replied. "It's a surprise. We're dropping the mixtape at midnight, but we'll be playing it in just a minute."

"Elaborate," Leah said. "I didn't think he'd ever finish it."

"He has some loyal producers," Embry said smugly.

"Hey, do you know where Jake is?" Leah wondered.

"I was just on the phone with him. He should be on the way with his girlfriend soon."

Leah's voice shot up an octave. "Girlfriend?" she repeated.

"That's what he told me." Something or someone behind Leah and Kim caught his eye, and he promptly brushed them off. "I'll see you guys later, alright?"

"Okay," Leah said, but he didn't hear her.

"Jealous?" Kim asked her, and Leah knew just who she was talking about.

Leah quickly shook her head. "Me? No. I haven't even seen her yet, and I'm not into Jake like that anymore."

Kim pursed her lips and gave her a look. "If you say so…"

"Come on." She raised the back of her hand. "Do these fingernails _look_ like I'm still into Jacob?"

Kim, with the biggest smile on her face, took Leah's hand. "You finally cut your nails!"

"I was wondering, though," Leah said, "did you want me to cut them out of a style preference, or…?"

Kim playfully rolled her eyes. "You'll see, babe."

Leah smiled, and she felt a lot better about the existence of Jacob's brand-new girlfriend.

The loud music was suddenly cut off, and Quil was trying to get everyone to quiet down.

"Hey," he said. "I wanna thank all of y'all for coming tonight. It really means a lot to me. I'm about to play y'all something so exclusive, nobody's heard this yet. This is my new mixtape, _98350_ , which is gonna hit every illegal music site you can name at midnight. Enjoy, motherfuckers!"

Quil was met with scattered applause, and the music began. The first track, "Bambi," began, and it was just like the demo that Embry had showed Emily back in New York, except much cleaner.

Leah and Kim had found the beer in the kitchen when the latter girl realized the song was about her. "Do you hear that?" she asked.

"Quil can actually sing," Leah said. "And rap. Holy shit."

"No, the _lyrics_ ," Kim replied. "He's saying 'Bambi.'"

Leah listened a little closer. "Oh, shit, you're right. This is totally about you." And the song was pretty passionate, too. Quil was going on about how he had always been in love with Kim, even when she was dating a quarterback, and even when he found out she liked girls. He artistically described the details of her ass, which caused Kim to grow beyond embarrassed.

Kim let her face fall into her hand. "I thought he was over me," she groaned.

"Hey, Leah," a voice suddenly said. Leah and Kim looked up. It was Emily. "Hey, _Bambi_ ," she added with a teasing smile.

"Don't remind me," Kim said.

Emily hugged them both. "How are you guys?" she asked.

"Sober," Leah and Kim said simultaneously.

"Good to know. Have you guys seen Embry?"

"I think I saw him passing out CDs in the living room about thirty seconds ago," Kim said.

"Oh, okay. Did you guys see Claire? 'Cause I swear to God, I just saw her."

"That's weird," Leah replied. "I think I just saw her, too. You might wanna say something to her, though, because if I do, I'm gonna end up hurting her feelings."

"I don't really care that she's too young," Emily admitted. "I bet she's not even the youngest person here. She just better not still be with Quil because that's fucking gross."

Leah shrugged. "Maybe she's not here, after all. She's not the only little bitch with braces and hoop earrings."

"True," Emily agreed. "I'll see you guys around." Then she left the kitchen, in search of Embry.

 _98350_ by Delinquent V turned out to not be such a bad mixtape. It was good for an absolute amateur, and it certainly had an artistic vision.

Emily and Embry were sitting on a couch just talking when she complimented his artistic vision as the fifth track ended.

"This is so good so far," she told him. "You're doing a great job."

"The next track's a banger," he told her. "Just wait."

The next track wasn't a banger, though. It was a spoken word interlude.

"Wait, what the fuck?" Embry mumbled to himself.

The passage sounded unfamiliar to Emily at first, but she ended up reciting the rest of it herself. Quil just ended up changing some of the pronouns and names to suit him.

"What the fuck was that?" she asked Embry.

"I… I don't know," he admitted. "We went over the whole album just the other night and that wasn't on it." Then he got up to find Quil. Emily followed.

Quil was in the kitchen, surrounded by a group of younger girls who were overly impressed by his musical talent.

Embry pulled Quil, who was already half-faded, aside. "What was that last track?" he asked.

"It's an interlude called 'Young,'" he replied. "I threw it on last night. Fits right in, huh?"

"Where did you get it?" Emily demanded. "Because I wrote that."

"C'mon, Em, don't be mad."

She gave him a look, and her arms were crossed. "You can't take something I wrote, change up the names, and call it your own," she told him.

"Is it illegal?" Quil challenged.

 _I'm a fucking amateur,_ she thought. _Of course, it's not illegal._

"No," she said, "but it's unethical."

"What?"

"You created some weird _Fifty Shades_ remake of my original poetry that serves as a track for your mixtape."

" _Fifty Shades?_ " he repeated, totally lost.

Emily, exasperated, looked to Embry. "And you had no idea about this?"

"No idea," Embry said.

"You made a fan fiction out of my work," Embry told Quil.

"Em, it's really not that deep," he said. "If you want royalties, you can have royalties, but there's not gonna be that much since I'm releasing this for free."

"It's not about money," she said.

"Then what's it about?"

"I don't need another person taking my shit without asking me first. I don't write for anybody but myself, and just because I'm not published doesn't mean you can go ahead and take what's mine for your personal gain."

"Look, Sam came to me about it last night," Quil explained. "When he took your notebooks, he really did throw them away in the end, but he kept one poem that he thought was good. He showed it to me last night, and it was so good I had to record it, mix it, and put it on the tape at the last minute. I changed a couple of words and names around to make it about Claire, but it's also an homage to you. That's part of the reason why it's called 'Young.'"

 _Wow,_ she thought. _That's actually not that terrible. I'm still mad at Sam, though._

She calmed down a bit. "That's kind of sweet," she admitted. "You're still a fuckass for doing that, though. Is Sam here?"

"Doubt it," Quil said. "But if you see him, you better let him what's up 'cause I shouldn't have taken the rap for all that by myself."

"Fine," Emily said. "Good job. Just don't do that ever again, okay?"

Quil grinned. "We good?"

Emily rolled her eyes. "We're good."

"Aw, c'mere."

He pulled her into a hug, and everything was okay.

* * *

Leah was sitting at the front porch, listening to the fireworks go off and sipping from a beer can, when she suddenly heard something pull into the gravel parking area nearby. She turned, and that was when she saw two figures, both wearing motorcycle helmets, getting off a motorcycle.

 _There he is,_ she thought. _When has he ever been into motorcycles like that, since his attempt to build them with Bella failed?_

Jacob took off his helmet first, and seeing him was like a breath of fresh air. Leah hadn't seen him around since they all got back from the road trip. Then the girl with him took off her helmet, and Leah felt her self-esteem plummet, just a little bit.

Jacob's new girlfriend was a white girl of about Leah's height with thick, wavy, light red-gold hair that flowed down to the center of her back. Her body was great, too, with pronounced hips and an actual ass. Even from this far away, she looked like she came out of a movie.

 _Where the hell did he find her?_ Leah wondered.

Jacob and his girlfriend locked up their helmets to the bike and then walked up to the front porch, their hands interlocked. Leah almost hoped they would ignore her, but Jacob just wasn't that kind of person.

"Hey, stranger," he said to her.

"I was starting to think you died," she replied, and she couldn't stop herself from smiling. She had been wondering if he still saw her as a friend, or if he was through with her entirely. It wasn't like she had given him an easy time. It wasn't in her nature.

It just wasn't in Jacob's nature to hate her, because he smiled back.

 _We're still friends._

Jacob and Leah hugged, but it wasn't awkward, even in front of his girlfriend. When they broke away, he turned to his girlfriend and said, "Lizzie, this is my best friend Leah. Leah, this is my girlfriend Lizzie."

Lizzie was even prettier up close. She had a few gold-colored freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks, eyes the color of cinnamon, and really great eyebrows. Physically, she was pretty much perfect.

Lizzie stuck out her hand, and it took Leah a moment before she shook it.

"I've heard so much about you," Lizzie said, a warm smile upon her face.

"I hope they've been good things," Leah replied playfully. "Are you from around here?"

"I'm up in Port Angeles for the summer, but I'm actually from Portland. I go to school there."

"Portland," Leah repeated thoughtfully. "Hope you don't mind the extra rain up here."

Lizzie shrugged. "It's not too different."

Leah looked to Jacob. "You guys should come inside. Delinquent V's mixtape isn't that bad. Oh, and Quil's been asking where you are for the last fifteen minutes." She rolled her eyes.

"I thought I was scrapped from the project," Jacob replied.

"Maybe you should ask him for the creds."

The three of them went inside the cabin, and the place was so hot they almost went back outside. The party was still going strong, and Leah hadn't even spotted any vomit yet. So far, it was pretty classy.

Lizzie managed to find some people she hadn't expected to be at the party, and she was catching up with them in the living room, so Leah got Jacob by himself for a much-needed moment in the kitchen.

"Okay, so first of all," she said, " _where_ did you find her?"

He sighed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"No, no, it's a good thing. A _really_ good thing. Jake, you know you haven't been around. I have to know everything. Where'd you meet her?"

"We met at work just about the second we got back from the road trip," he said.

"The garage in Port Angeles, right?" she asked.

"That's the one. Liz and I hit it off really fast. We've been together since the beginning of June."

"Holy _shit_ ," Leah said.

"What?" he asked semi-defensively.

"It's nothing, Jake," she said, and it was reassuring. "I'm happy for you. I'm just surprised that I didn't know earlier."

"Nobody found out until now," he replied. "Except my dad. I mean, just 'cause the ten of us know each other doesn't mean we all have to know what we're doing."

"You're making moves on your own," she murmured.

He nodded. "Yeah," he agreed. "It's about time."

"Tell me about Lizzie," she said. "She's gorgeous."

His face lit up like the sun. "Yeah, she is. She's great. She's really funny, and she knows cars. She actually helped me build that motorcycle we came here on."

"I was gonna mention that," Leah replied. "When did you start getting into motorcycles again? I thought you gave that up when you and Bella got busted."

"Oh, right, 'cause my interests only exist when Bella exists, right?"

They both laughed. "It's not that," Leah said. "I'm just… surprised. Jake, you sound really happy with Lizzie."

He just stood there with brightest smile on his face. She almost wanted to cry. Jacob Black, who she felt had never really cared about anything, was in love.

And she wasn't even mad that he wasn't in love with her.

"Remember that one night in February or March when we went out and then came back to your place?" he asked. "And we ended up talking all night?"

Leah didn't forget anything. "Of course," she said.

"Remember how we were talking about how that 'other half' talk is straight bullshit?"

She nodded. "Nobody is made for someone else," she echoed. "We're made for ourselves, but we can adapt to other people. We can change."

"Exactly. Lee, I think Lizzie is the closest I'm ever going to get to someone being made for me."

It took Leah all her might not to cry.

Jacob Black was going to be okay.

"Me and Liz," he went on, "we didn't get together because we had to. I mean, yeah, we met at work, but I didn't grow up with her. I _chose_ to be with her and she _chose_ to be with me and… it just works. You know?"

Leah nodded. "You sound really crazy about her."

"I think I am," he said. "And I know we're probably moving too fast, but… But at the end of the summer, I'm gonna move to Portland with her."

She raised her eyebrows. "You are?" Again, she was more shocked than upset.

"I got a job set up over there. Her dad's really big on cars."

"Figures."

"Yeah, I know. But he offered me a job, and I took it. Besides, Lizzie's gotta go back to school at some point."

"Wow, Jake," Leah said.

"That was a lot, I know," he said, "but I haven't told anybody else except my dad."

"I'm just having a hard time believing all this," Leah admitted. "I'm so used to you moving slow. You usually take your time in everything you do. Did Lizzie change all this?"

"Throwing myself into a relationship with Lizzie is one of the best things I've ever done," he said. (Leah was trying _super_ hard not to be upset now.) "If I don't get out of here now, I never will."

She couldn't even be mad at him, though. He was right.

So Leah decided that she liked Lizzie. She had to have been some sort of miracle worker, because Jacob, who had been deemed "damaged goods," wasn't so damaged anymore, or he was at least actively working to become whole again. Leah liked that Lizzie had turned him bold enough to finally say goodbye to the badlands, because the badlands might just consume him entirely if her were to stay. The badlands were a beacon—they kept pulling people right back. Leah liked that Lizzie made Jacob feel like he could breathe again, because his lungs had been too full before her.

Maybe part of that was Leah's fault. She could see it. She was as consuming as the ocean. She could be overbearing and unwavering. She had a smart mouth with a minimal verbal filter. She was the queen of sarcasm, passive-aggression, and sly digs. She didn't seem to have a problem with her attitude, but it was too hot for some people. Too energetic and aggressive. She could admit that her personality certainly was not everybody's cup of tea. (So it was a good thing that Kim preferred coffee.)

Leah was too much and both she _and_ Jacob knew this. She still loved him—she would always love him in one way or another—but love alone was not enough to keep him from sinking. He needed more. He needed a life jacket. A little buoy of hope. That was what Lizzie was for him, and who was Leah to not want him to finally reach safety?

She didn't regret letting him go. It had to have happened sometime. All she regretted was the fact that she hadn't let him in when they had been kids—back when they had been thirteen and fourteen and fifteen. Maybe he would have helped ease her out of her attitude. Maybe he would have showed her how to not be so rough. He couldn't have stopped her father's death, but maybe her response would have been less volatile.

Then again, maybe he wouldn't have loved her at all if she had changed. Jacob existed in such a calm, quiet way that she may never know. And deep down, she was okay with this because in the end, he would be okay, too.

* * *

Paul and Bella were just pulling up to the cabin when Bella cleared the notifications on her phone for the tenth time.

"Damn, is Kim okay?" Paul asked.

"She's fine," Bella replied, turning her phone over to hide the screen, which kept illuminating. It wasn't Kim who kept texting her, but a person she had blocked a long time ago.

Edward Cullen just did not know when to give up.

This was the third day that Edward was texting her, and from a third different cell phone number since she kept blocking him. She was in the process of getting a new phone with a new number, but she wouldn't be able to go until tomorrow, and that didn't even feel close enough with Edward harassing her like this. She didn't want Paul to freak out, so she had lied and said it was Kim who was texting her, but it wasn't that convincing anymore.

"We're just gonna go in and out, right?" she asked Paul as they got out of his car.

"In and out," he promised. "I mean, as quick as we can since Kim's blowing up your phone."

"Right." Now that she thought about it, she really should talk to him.

Bella, already prepared to endure at least a little secondhand weed smoke, entered the cabin before Paul did. She quickly greeted the people she knew and congratulated Quil on his mixtape all without stepping in vomit before she found Kim, who was standing in a corner, talking to Leah.

"Hey, Leah," she said. "You mind if I talk to Kim for a second?"

"Sure," Leah said, and then she and Kim exchanged a look for half a second, but it felt like forever. Bella didn't understand why or how they weren't dating, but they were practically the same person at this point. It was cute, but in an almost terrifying way.

Leah excused herself, and Kim turned to Bella. "What's up?" she asked.

"Baby girl," Bella began, "you hate men more than anyone I know—"

"Whoa," Kim interrupted her. "I don't hate men. I'm not even gay."

"Um."

Kim refrained from rolling her eyes. "I'm bi," she said. "Not Gay Lite. Not Diet Gay. Bi."

"I'm sorry," Bella said. "It's just that I know you generally don't take shit from men. What do I do when one is fucking with me?"

"What do you mean?"

Bella unlocked her phone and tapped the latest message from Edward, instantly opening all the other ones from just this number alone. She handed the phone to Kim, and Kim carefully read all of them, scrolling down. They were baseless messages, just the typical _I know that you know something_ as well as the classic _Don't play dumb_ and _Answer me, bitch_. He called her a cunt, too, but it wasn't like this was a new thing for him.

"Jesus, who _is_ this?" Kim asked. "He's a real asshole."

"It's Edward. My ex, the guy who bailed us out of jail."

"Isn't his brother—?"

Bella nodded. "His brother is the one who was murdered."

"Does he think you have something to do with that?" Kim's voice was quiet.

Bella shrugged, and her expression was truly worried. "I don't know. He thinks I may know whoever did it, but I have no idea. This is the third number he's using because I keep blocking him."

"He really won't stop, huh?" Kim asked, a hint of sadness in her eyes.

Bella just shook her head.

"Come with me."

They went out to Kim's car, and Kim made sure nobody was around when she reached into the glove compartment.

"What, are you gonna give me your registration papers?" Bella asked, leaning against the back door.

"You wanted my help, right?" Kim asked, her voice biting.

"I guess."

Kim got out of the passenger side and shut the door. She had a gun in her hands. It was the exact same gun she had threatened Jared with, except she had put the bullets back in when she had finished using it.

She gently held it out to Bella. "Here," she said. "It's already loaded."

Bella took it, but all she did was stare at it in her hand. "Kim, what the _fuck_?" she asked. "Where did you get this?"

Kim couldn't bring herself to admit that she had bought a gun from a guy who had recently been shot in the head.

"I know about you and Paul winning the lottery," Kim said, "and you're gonna need this a lot more me if you're feeling threatened. I'm not saying you should shoot the guy, but you need to bite back if he's trying to mess with you."

"Have you used this before?" Bella asked.

"Almost. Be smart, Bella." She closed the passenger door and locked the car. She began to head back to the party.

Bella couldn't even move, but she didn't want to give the gun back, either. She didn't want to back out without even going in. "Is that it?" she asked.

"Oh, I almost forgot," Kim said, turning around. "For the love of God, hide it somewhere good when you're done with it."

"Okay."

* * *

Leah and Kim ended up leaving the party once Bella and Paul did, and the four of them managed to catch each other on the way out, near their cars. Bella had hidden the gun in her purse, but she hugged Kim and Leah carefully.

Paul, on the other hand, wasn't careful. It wasn't in his nature.

"Thanks for everything," he told them. "These last few months with you guys have been real."

"What, are you going away, too?" Leah asked.

"Yes," Paul said matter-of-factly. "We're moving to Seattle in August."

Leah gave Kim a look. "We're gonna be the only ones left here," she said, trying to hide the sadness in her voice. Yes, it was only Paul and Bella leaving this time, but that wasn't the point.

"We should all get together one last time," Paul suggested. "All ten of us."

"You really don't get sick of anyone," Kim said playfully. "You better stick to your word."

Paul flashed a smile. "Don't worry about it. Take care, you guys."

"You, too," Leah said. "Always."

"You know it."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** The next chapter will likely be up in January. Happy New Year!_

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	82. LXXXII

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight or anything else that may be familiar to you while reading this. _

_So here is chapter 82 of Static. (Also, I lied about chapter 81 being the longest. It turns out, it's like the 5th longest chapter, so I was... off.) But, anyway, chapter 82 is a little shorter and a little more dramatic. You'll see._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXXXII.**

 _summer friends don't stick around_

* * *

Three weeks after Independence Day, Leah sat in the chair next to the telephone in her mother's old house, twirling the long, beige, 70s style cable around her finger. She peered around the house as she waited for Quil to pick up the phone. Cardboard boxes were stacked and scattered throughout, and Seth was packing even more of them. The Clearwaters were finally moving on.

What had been her childhood home now looked like an empty skeleton, except all that remained was the heart. Plenty of things had changed, as well as the people who had occupied the house, but the house itself had remained static. It was the same home that had existed when Harry Clearwater had lived. It was the home that Sue had lived in before she had ever been diagnosed with breast cancer. It was the same home that Seth's asthma had been the worst in. The heart would always stay, though.

Leah loved the stability of the home. She loved the telephone even more because, despite its age, it worked perfectly fine. It was the most stable of all.

Quil finally picked up the phone. "Seth?" he asked.

"No, it's Leah," she said. "Took you long enough to pick up."

"Why are you calling on a landline, anyway?" he asked.

"I have a flip phone with a limited amount of minutes," she replied, and he could almost see her roll her eyes through the phone. "I'm fuckin' poor."

"Okay, so what's going on?"

"Because I don't hate all of you _that_ much," she began, "I'm throwing a party at the beach. Well, not a party-party, 'cause, again, I'm poor, but I wanna see all of you."

"Aw, you're so gushy," Quil teased.

"Yeah, sure," she said sarcastically, but since she had realized that so many people were leaving and things might never ever be the same after this summer, she felt a need to be good and do good. She wanted to surround herself with the people she tolerated the most before she lost such easy accessibility to them.

"When's the party?" he asked.

"Tomorrow night at eight."

" _Shit_ ," he said.

"What, you have something going on?" she asked.

"I got my first gig."

"No shit?" she asked semi-excitedly.

"Nuh-uh."

"Where at?"

"The Metta Room," he told her. "It's in downtown Port Angeles."

"Ooh," she said. "Pretty bougie."

"Like everything else in Port Angeles. It's gonna get a little ghetto tomorrow, though."

"Well, good luck," Leah said. "We'll be thinking about you at the party."

"Oh, I'll show up," he said. "You said it's at eight, right?"

"Yeah, it's at eight. You don't have to do that, though. You've got your first show. I don't want you messing that up."

"Nothing's getting messed up," he promised. "I'll be there for a little bit and then head out."

"Fine. Were you gonna invite the rest of us to the show or are you afraid of it getting _really_ ghetto as opposed to a little bit?"

"I didn't invite you guys because it's not that close by, I'm pretty sure the venue is twenty-one and over, and you've already heard the mixtape, anyway."

"I guess."

"What's your favorite track?" he wondered.

"Uh." She glanced over to his CD sitting on one of the boxes, collecting dust. The last time she'd listened to it was at the party. She just couldn't get past the first track and how she had effortlessly stolen his lifelong crush right from under him. She smiled to herself.

"The one about being Vine famous," she guessed. Knowing Quil, that was probably the subject of one of the songs.

"'Loop That Shit,'" he said.

"Right," she said as if she knew what he was talking about. "Well, that's my favorite one. I'll see you tomorrow night, okay?"

"See ya."

Leah hung up and immediately dialed Jacob's number. She tried his cell phone, which she still knew by heart, and he answered much quicker than Quil had.

"Hey, Leah," he said upon answering.

"How'd you know it wasn't Seth?" she wondered.

"I don't know, I had a feeling," he said.

"Hmm. Well, tomorrow night at eight I'm trying to have a get-together at the beach with everyone. So far, everyone said they'd go. Wanna come?"

"Lee, I'd love to," he said, but he sounded like he really wouldn't love to. "I've just been really busy with work and everything. Tired, too."

"You'll get to let loose a little," she said. "And it won't be the same without you."

"I'm not that sure," he replied. "I've just… I've never really felt part of the group like that, you know?"

"Yeah," she agreed. " _You_ have a life. Not everyone can say that. It's just that… So many people are moving at the end of the summer. Things are changing. I wanna see everyone. I wanna see _you_."

She hoped to whatever God there was that she wasn't coming off as desperate as she really was, but at the same time, he was Jacob. She didn't want to be with him, but she didn't want to be without him, either. He had really grown to be a confidante of hers, and he was static. She still wasn't used to the fact that soon, he wouldn't be right where he always was. She wasn't upset, but it would be a lot for her to adjust to.

 _Stop making it about you_ , she told herself. _He's doing this so HE can be better, stupid._

Her feelings must have gone through the phone, then, because Jacob finally told her, "Okay. I'll go."

She smiled. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"You don't have to go because I asked you to, you know," she told him. "I didn't mean to pressure you." _Except I did._

"Yeah, you did," he said bluntly. At least he wasn't sugarcoating it. "But I'm gonna go because I want to."

"Thank you, Jake," she said. "Really. For everything."

"It's no problem, Lee. I've got you."

"Alright, well, I'll see you next time," she said.

"Next time," he promised.

* * *

The next evening was warm, but with a slight chill. Just like La Push. Just like First Beach and Forks and Port Angeles and everything that anybody in the group had ever known. Summer had a certain taste to it: warmth, nostalgia, love. It also had a bittersweet aftertaste, because after summer, nothing really was the same. People and things would change, but they would snap right back in time for the next summer, because that was when everything mattered.

Jacob wouldn't snap back, though. He would never see a breezy summer in La Push again. While his last summer hadn't been particularly _normal_ , his next summer wouldn't be anything like this.

He was driving back from work on his Harley Sprint at around 8:30 that evening. He was closer to Forks than Port Angeles, but he was still faced with a long, winding road surrounded by absolutely nothing. He was in boonies. The bare heart of the badlands. Plenty of awful things had happened out here, and plenty more awful things would continue to happen out here, all because there was nobody around. People didn't know how to act when nobody else was around to watch.

The only thing that really occupied Jacob's mind besides _I told Leah I would go, so I'm going_ was the thought of Lizzie. He would be moving to Portland with her towards the end of August, and that was the only positive thing he was really holding onto. Despite his father constantly assuring him that he could take care of himself, Jacob felt that he was leaving him for dead. He felt that he was no better than his sisters, but at the same time, why did his sisters get to be free while he had to be confined to the badlands? Yes, the badlands (and Leah) kept pulling him back, but wasn't he strong enough?

Lizzie made him strong enough. She was smart. Wild smart. She knew how to read Jacob like a book. Fairly early into their young relationship, she had told him he was at war with himself. He knew that. Everybody knew that. But she was the only person who got him to finally let go. To just _ride._ That was when he had decided to build a motorcycle again, and while he wasn't healed, he was on his way. His soul was still lost, but he was slowly finding it. It was slowly coming back into his grip.

With Lizzie, he didn't feel so guilty leaving the badlands.

 _If I don't get out now, I never will._

He held onto that as he continued to drive home. The road was mostly empty, except for the three black pickup trucks behind him. They kept their distance, but Jacob wondered why they drove in a triangular formation, taking up both sides of the road with the one in the front right in the middle. Granted, the road was empty, but it was still a strange sight.

He peered into his side mirror. The three trucks were getting even closer to him. He tried to swerve so they could pass him, but they stayed right on his back. They kept getting closer, and Jacob was trying to take off, but they kept up. He would go fast, but they would also go fast.

 _What the fuck is your problem?_ he thought.

Jacob tried to swerve again when the truck in the front and center immediately swerved with it. Before he could even register what was going on, Jacob had been knocked off his bike and was rolling all over the ground, his bike falling on top of him.

Suddenly, his helmet had been thrown off his head, and a face concealed by an eerie skeleton mask was the last thing he saw.

* * *

Jacob woke up in the very same position, except he had been dragged into the back of a speeding truck and his wrists and ankles were sloppily tied up with duct tape. He must have not been out for very long, because the sun still hadn't set yet.

Edward Cullen took off his mask, and underneath it was an unsettling smile. "There he is," he said, a creepy tone to his voice.

Jacob spent a while trying to figure out where he had seen Edward before. He couldn't figure it out, but he knew that he had seen him at least once before now.

"Who the hell are you?" Jacob demanded. "And why'd you knock me off my bike, you fuckin' ass—"

Edward suddenly slapped him hard in the face. It could have hurt worse, but it was the most emasculating thing Jacob had ever felt.

"You hit like a girl," he said, his face stinging.

"Listen, Jacob," Edward began. "I'm doing you a favor."

"How the hell do you know my name?"

"Jacob Black, I know everything about you. I know where you live. I know where you work. I know who you hang out with. I know just about everything. It wasn't that hard to figure out."

"You're fucking crazy. You're a stalker. How the hell do you know all that?"

"Not important," Edward said curtly. "What's important is that you know who _I_ am and what _I_ want."

Then Jacob put it all together. This was the guy who had been crying on TV over the murder of his brother back in March. A bone-deep chill ran through Jacob.

That was when Edward reached into his back pocket and pulled out a gun. He brought it close to Jacob's face in a teasing manner, and Jacob tried his very hardest not to freak out.

"If you can tell me something," he continued, "I just might not kill you."

* * *

"We're on the way, Lee," Bella lied into the phone and she tried to put on mascara without a mirror, slip on her shoes, and fix her hair all at once. She hastily finished these tasks and was in a frantic search for her denim jacket.

Paul, ready to go, held her jacket out to her. "Thank you," she said. "No, sorry, that was to Paul. We're still on the way. I'll see you soon. Bye." She hung up.

"You all ready?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said. "You should have told me about this party a long time ago, though. We wouldn't be an hour late if that was the case."

"I swear I told you the second Leah called me," he replied as they headed out the front door of their house in La Push.

"Well, you didn't," she said. "I just don't know why she didn't call me first."

They got into his car. "No use in arguing about it now," he said.

She shut the door to the passenger side. "I'm not arguing with you," she said, her voice slightly annoyed.

He rested his hand on her protruding, six months pregnant stomach, which he was now overly fond of doing. "Then don't worry about it," he told her.

He pulled out of the driveway, and just around the corner swerved the three black pickup trucks. The one in front still held Edward and Jacob in the back.

Paul peered into his rearview mirror, and in the distance, he could see the driver of the first truck. He was wearing a skeleton mask. It looked just like the ones that the guys in the old Port Angeles chop shop used to wear before they all decided it looked stupid.

 _Dumb-asses,_ Paul thought. It hadn't been dark for long by this point, but the trucks all drove with their headlights off.

"Eyes on the road," Bella said, her voice tense.

"Shit, sorry." Paul blinked and focused on the road ahead. The trucks, in a triangle formation, followed behind from a significant distance. As Paul drove to the beach, he kept thinking they would eventually turn and head some other direction, but they stayed right on him.

Bella didn't notice they were still behind them until they pulled into the parking lot of First Beach. Paul parked, and the trucks all circled the car, surrounding them. Paul turned off the car, and as everything became dark inside, the trucks all turned on their lights.

"Paul?" Bella asked. "What's happening—?"

"Shh," he said quietly. "These guys are from the chop shop."

"I thought you stopped messing with them."

His voice was just above a whisper. "I did. Stay right here."

He got out of the car, not expecting her to follow, but she followed him, anyway. Just before she got out, she reached into the glove compartment—underneath the stacks of miscellaneous papers—and pulled out the gun that Kim had given her at Quil's party. She slipped it against the waistband of her pants, at her side, and covered it up with her jacket.

When she opened the car door, she was immediately pulled out by a man with an eerie skeleton mask and rough hands. "Hey, be careful," she protested.

"Shut the fuck up," he said.

He pushed her towards the front of the car, across from Paul, and the bright lights of all the trucks were blinding.

"What the fuck is going on?" Bella heard someone say. Bella looked towards the beach, and everybody was walking up. They must have wondered why the parking lot suddenly got so bright.

Bella visually scanned the group. _Leah, Kim, Quil, Embry, Seth, Emily, Sam…_ It was everybody else except…

"Oh, my God, _Jacob_!" Leah cried out.

Jacob was being pulled out of a truck and dragged to the center by two guys in masks. The tape around his ankles had been removed, but his wrists were still taped up. There were cuts all over his face, and he was bleeding in a few places. He looked exhausted, but there was a frantic, scared look in his eyes. He was tightly held next to Paul, who had an angry expression on his face. The both of them stood across from Bella, who was stoic.

All the other guys in the trucks got out, holding baseball bats and wearing the same mask. Overall, there were about twelve of them. Then the thirteenth one, being Edward wearing a mask, emerged from the back, except he wielded a handgun. He walked to the center of it all, swinging the gun in Bella's face, and then turning to do the same to Paul and Jacob. Bella just closed her eyes. Jacob looked away. Paul stared at him dead in the eyes, not even fazed. Paul Lahote wasn't afraid of anything.

Edward took off his mask once again, and Bella knew she shouldn't have been surprised, but she was. Paul just looked angrier.

Leah could hear Emily murmur, "Are you fucking kidding me right now?" There were similar responses coming from Quil, Embry, Seth, and Sam. Kim was slightly shaking. Leah grabbed her hand and held onto it like her life depended on it.

Everything was dead silent until Paul asked Edward, "What the fuck do you want _now_?" He tried to move forward, clearly pissed off, but he was still being held back by Edward's guys.

"You know what I want," Edward said. Then he turned to the rest of the Quileutes. "You _all_ know what the fuck I want."

"I already told you what I know," Bella said, her voice quiet. "You don't have to be so dramatic, Edward."

"Oh, right, I'm the dramatic one now," he said, turning to her. "You just shut the hell up."

"Don't fucking talk to her like that," Paul said. "You know what happened last time you tried that shit."

Edward went over to him and punched him in the face with the gun. " _Shut_ up," he told him.

Paul just spat hard and fast into his face. "Pussy," he muttered.

"Paul, don't," Bella said.

Edward gave a twisted, wicked smile and socked Paul in the face with his fist. It wasn't the worst that Paul had gotten—it wasn't like he hadn't been hit before. It just wasn't the easiest to take.

"What, is that all you got?" Paul challenged. "Get your little bitches to let go of me and we can settle this, man to man."

"Paul, _stop_!" Bella said from across the clearing, louder this time.

"Shit, Bella," Edward said. "All you ever do is protect him. If he would just admit that he killed my brother, then this would all be over."

"I didn't kill nobody!" Paul yelled. "I told you this before, and I'm telling you this again—I don't know who the fuck killed your brother. It's old news, and he was a dumb-ass, anyway. He was fucking with the wrong people, and he had it coming."

Edward pointed the gun right in his face. "Do you want to say that again, motherfucker?" he asked.

"Nobody gives a fuck about your dead brother," Paul said, calm as ever.

Edward just turned away and stepped towards Jacob, pointing the gun at his head. He looked back at Bella. "You fucked this guy, too, right?" he asked her. "You could never stay away from the reservation, no matter what I told you." He gestured to her baby bump. "That's obvious, though."

"Jacob has nothing to do with this," Bella said. "He's done nothing wrong."

"Is that so?" Edward asked, tapping the muzzle of the gun against Jacob's temple. "Is that so, Jacob?" The frantic look in his eyes never went away. Jacob was so terrified, and Edward knew. He laughed in his face.

Leah couldn't do anything but cover her mouth and try not to cry. _Jacob never wanted to come_ , she thought. _He never wanted to come, but he came for me and now this is happening._

"So who's it going to be?" Edward asked, bringing the gun away from Jacob and pointing it at Paul again.

"None of us did it," Bella said. "It doesn't have to be anybody."

"Bella, you're a liar," he said. "You've always been one. When you would steal from me. When you would run off without saying anything. Lying doesn't get you anywhere."

"Like you're the poster child for honesty, right?" she asked. "Since you're such a saint."

"I'm not a murderer," he nearly shouted. He gestured to the other Quileutes. "One of you is, though. Either somebody speaks up or somebody has to pay."

"Edward, you're fucking crazy," Bella said. "You have no idea who did it. Nobody here does. It sucks that your brother's dead, but that doesn't mean _you_ get to come here and threaten us like a fucking psycho and—"

Quil suddenly stepped up next to Paul and Jacob. "I did it," he confessed, his voice clear. "I killed your brother."

Edward turned around with an incredulous look on his face. It matched the expressions of just about everybody else there, except Emily and Embry, and that was because they already knew.

"Oh, my god," Kim gasped. Leah just squeezed her hand in response.

"I killed him," Quil repeated. "And I took his twenty bucks."

Then it was dead silent. Edward looked over to Paul, Jacob, and Quil's direction, lifted his gun, and fired a bullet.

That was when the screaming began.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** *eyes emoji* Until next time._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	83. LXXXIII

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight or anything else._

 _So here is chapter 83 of Static. If you didn't read the last chapter, go back and read it. If you haven't read the last few chapters, go back and read those, too. If you're trying to catch up and you don't know what Wafflegate is, stay away from the reviews and keep catching up. And if you're trying to catch up but somewhere in the plot, Bella and Jacob are still dating... I'm sorry._

 _This chapter, chapter 83 (!), started out really short and bare, which was annoying, so I filled it out with some pretty details and throwbacks. Anyway, here it is. Oh, and I forgot to say this last chapter, but as a warning, this chapter is heavy on the violence._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXXXIII.**

 _over futile odds  
and laughed at by the gods  
and now the final frame  
love is a losing game_

* * *

She didn't know if she couldn't hear because of the first gunshot or because of everybody suddenly screaming and trying to scramble away, but Bella could hardly hear herself think by the moment she pulled out her gun and immediately shot Edward square in the chest.

She didn't know who Edward had shot—she was too afraid to look, and whoever had been shot was immediately surrounded by the Quileutes. Bella was so angry that he had threatened and shot anybody at all. She didn't even know why she had shot him, but she watched him fall over almost in slow motion, like he was underwater, and she didn't even feel bad.

He was dead, and her mind was clear.

 _It's over,_ she thought. _He is finally over._

Then she turned, and when she saw Jacob and Quil both perfectly fine, that was when she realized that Edward had shot Paul. Amidst all the screaming, all the chaos, all the men hopping into the pickup trucks and driving away, she finally realized that Paul had been shot in the stomach.

"He fuckin' shot me!" he screamed, his hands covered in his own blood. "The motherfucker shot me!"

Bella was suddenly on her knees, having let go of the gun, and the world had become too loud. Too harsh. She was deafening herself with her own screams and cries. She made loud, ugly noises as she held him at his hands, trying to process what had just happened. She hoped that it was all fake, but the dark, warm blood covering both of their hands was anything but.

"You're gonna be alright," she said frantically. "We're gonna be alright."

All he could do was scream in pain. It was the ugliest sound Bella could ever imagine. The image of him was hard to witness, too. He had never looked so vulnerable. The aggressive kid who had never been afraid of anyone or anything had finally gotten knocked down.

"He fuckin' shot me," he cried. "He shot me."

Bella glanced around her at everybody else left, who were all in a state of panic. "Can somebody call an ambulance?" she demanded.

"They're on the way," Emily said, still on the phone.

"Oh my God," Bella murmured, looking down at all the blood. "Oh my God."

Kim was kneeling next to Bella and Paul. "Shit, he's bleeding out fast," she muttered.

"Where the hell is the ambulance?" Bella asked impatiently.

"They're coming from Forks," Kim explained, trying her hardest to stay calm when on the inside, nothing was okay. Not Paul, who had been shot right in the stomach. Definitely not Edward, who was already dead. "It'll be a little while."

Bella still held Paul's hands. "We've got this," she told him. "We're gonna be alright. Don't worry about it, baby. We're gonna be alright. You're gonna be alright."

Paul was fading out increasingly by the minute, but Bella—the queen of empty promises—kept assuring him that they would be okay, as if he hadn't already lost the fight. She kept telling him he would be okay as he was being loaded into an ambulance. She wasn't allowed to go with him, and as she nearly drowned in her own tears, she noticed the police cars approaching the parking lot not too far behind the ambulances.

She quickly picked up the gun where she left it, near Edward's dead body, and began to take off towards the beach. She held the gun in her right hand and had her left hand on her stomach. Leah followed her.

"Bella, what the fuck are you doing?" Leah demanded as she caught up to her, catching her by the arm.

Bella turned and shrugged out of Leah's grip. "It's over, Leah!" she shouted. "I can't live like this. Paul's dead, and I'm going to prison."

"You don't know if he's dead," Leah replied. "You don't fucking know that."

"He was shot in the stomach. He's probably dead right now. And I'm going to prison. I can't fucking do this."

"Put the gun down," Leah told her. "You're gonna do something really fucking stupid if you don't."

"Stop!" Bella yelled. "I have nothing now."

"You have your baby," Leah countered. "You literally have millions of dollars."

"You think that means shit without Paul?" she asked. "You think any of that matters now?" Then she was sobbing. She had such an ugly, defeated cry that it was hard to watch.

All that Leah could say was that she was sorry, and that nobody deserved this, and that this was all an accident, but Bella couldn't hear her. She was still deaf because of her own sobs. Leah couldn't do anything but cry with her. It was the only thing they really had in common in the moment.

Bella had gotten through the worst of her sobbing when she lifted the gun to her head. She had cried herself out. She had cried about everything she could have cried about because Paul was her everything.

"Bella, you don't have to do this," Leah said desperately. "You're my sister. You haven't lost everything. Don't do this."

Bella had always been the girl who lived for love. She had never cared for platonic love. Plain, classic, romantic love was all that she had ever wanted. She would do anything or be anything for it. She didn't have many passions, but one had always been to seek the idea of love. She'd tried being independent, but that had gotten boring. She'd tried looking after herself first, but that had never been very inspiring. She wasn't a people person by any means, but she was head over heels for the idea of romantic love alone.

Bella had gone through her life as a walking, beating, thoughtless heart, blindly deciding that if love prevailed, she would prevail, too. As long as love was enough, she would be enough. But in this moment, she had never felt more wrong. She could have been Edward and she wouldn't even know it. Her heart, her soul, her entire _being_ felt like it had been shot right out. Her essence bled like Paul's stomach. Even if he was still alive in any possible way at this moment, she couldn't be with him anymore. In her own stomach lived a part of Paul, but Paul was no more, and subsequently, Bella was no more. Her heart was gone, and if she couldn't carry on without it, then what was she? What was love?

Love wasn't enough anymore. Love, she had found, was a losing game.

And even though she was a giant loser in all of this, even though she would never win now, she still lived for love. It was tragic, and the only thing that made this worse was that she would die for it, too.

"I have nothing," Bella said once again. Then she closed her eyes and pulled the trigger.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** This story isn't over until it's over. Stay tuned._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	84. LXXXIV

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight or like... anything else. _

_So here is chapter 84. You guys, we're getting so close to the end, it doesn't even feel real. We've almost made it. All four of us. I feel like it's still summer and I'm busting out three chapters a week. God, I fucking wish. This chapter is a bit short, like the last one. I still have to get used to the fact that sometimes, shorter chapters are okay. I usually don't feel like I've done a decent job until the chapter is 3000+ words long, and maybe that's true, but if I don't have a lot to say in the moment, then I just don't have a lot to say._

 _This chapter is really calm. I could have merged it with the next chapter, but I chose not to for flow reasons, as well as the fact that I like the number 88. So here's a short little chapter featuring Leah x Kim. If you really don't care for them, it's fine. I'll likely be updating soon, anyway._

 _By the way, I changed the cover of the story. Again. I think it's the best one yet - I wish this was the cover the entire time, I love it so much. Peep how glitchy it is._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXXXIV.**

 _am i wrong for wanting us to make it?_

* * *

It was just after twelve thirty in the morning when Leah and Kim quietly returned to their condo. As Kim slipped off her shoes, Leah locked the door behind them. In the entryway, neither of them had turned on the light yet. Maybe if they stayed in the dark, stayed quiet, and went to sleep, then they would wake up and realize that this was all one bad dream.

But they had to turn on the light. They had to stay awake.

They went to the couch, but they didn't turn on the TV as comforting background noise.

"Does Charlie know?" Kim asked Leah. They had just gotten back from the police station, as well as the hospital. Everything had happened so fast. Bella had killed herself, Paul had been pronounced dead at the hospital, and Quil had confessed to murdering Jasper all in an incredibly short time span. Leah had gotten to talk to Charlie in that time span and tell him everything that he wanted to know, but it hadn't been easy for her. Of course, it hadn't been easy for _him_.

Leah nodded solemnly. Her eyes were red from all the crying and the fact that she was completely exhausted. "Yeah," she said. "I told him just about everything. It was hard, Bambi. So hard."

"Did you tell him she was pregnant?"

Leah nodded again. "That was the worst part. He was…" She just shook her head. "He was shocked. And, God, he was so upset. He kept asking me why she didn't tell him she was pregnant or engaged. He was so upset. I haven't seen him that upset since… well, since my dad died."

"God," Kim sighed. "This is all so messed up."

"I can't even put into words how messed up this is," Leah agreed. She peered down, and Kim's phone was blowing up. "What's going on?" she asked.

"People are asking if I'm alright," she said with a slight roll of her eyes. "As if that means anything."

"It could have been any of us," Leah replied.

"But it was Paul. Then it was Bella."

Leah closed her eyes. Bella blowing her own brains out constantly replayed in her head. Even now, Leah didn't think that she would ever get over it. It was so unreal and so crazy that it seemed almost made up, except it wasn't. It wasn't, and that was where Leah was getting all torn up. Paul and Bella were gone. Dead. They had been perfectly fine just four hours ago, and now they were both dead. Their unborn child was dead, too. They might as well have never even existed.

"La Push isn't even trending on Twitter," Kim said, still on her phone, "but Delinquent V is."

"Why, do people think he's the one who died?"

"No. White girls are mad that he bailed on his show in Port Angeles, though."

"You can't be serious."

"I don't see why I'd lie."

Kim handed Leah her phone, and Leah began to scroll through the multitudes of tweets about Delinquent V. There were no mentions of the murders or suicide that had occurred at First Beach, but plenty of people were overly upset about Quil cancelling his show due to his arrest.

"'Free Delinquent V'?" Leah read, a disgusted look upon her face. "They're trippin'."

Kim just shook her head. "See, we never get shit," she said. "Jasper Cullen got the whole nation crying about him and his family doing interviews on TV for months. Jasper Cullen got 'hashtag-pray-for-Forks' and 'hashtag-stay-strong-Forks.' Where the fuck is the 'pray for La Push' hashtag? Do they even give a fuck about anything or anyone here except some D-list rapper?"

By the time she was finished, there were hot tears in her big eyes, just about to start flooding out. It made Leah want to cry, too (because they shared emotions just like they shared everything else), and she almost did, but she stopped herself. If she started crying, she just might never stop.

"Let's put on some TV, okay?" she asked, reaching for the remote control. "I bet the news is all over it."

Leah turned on the TV and went to the first news channel, which was broadcasting apparently breaking news in Port Angeles. The segment was titled, _Local Rapper Delinquent V Arrested; Debut Port Angeles Concert Cancelled._ Of course, the first thing Leah and Kim saw on TV was the long line of upset people outside of the Metta Room, where Quil was supposed to play before he turned himself in.

A reporter stood somewhere in the line next to a gaggle of girls who looked like they were in high school. Leah didn't catch what the reporter had asked them, but she caught the answer from one of the girls, a blonde with black mascara running down her cheeks.

"I think it's just really devastating," she said into a microphone, to the reporter. "You know, so many people came out to see Delinquent V tonight, even for his first gig. Like, I came all the way from Seattle, and it sucks that this happened. It would have been an amazing show."

A younger man who looked absolutely wasted suddenly appeared in the shot and took the microphone from the girl being interviewed. "Stream _98350_!" he hollered. "Free my boy, Delinquent!"

The camera suddenly cut to a crowd of people pumping their fists and chanting, "Free Delinquent V" repeatedly. Somewhere in the background, someone was bumping one of the tracks from _98350_ from their car speakers.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Leah asked. "Quil isn't locked up because he had weed, he's locked up because he _literally killed somebody._ "

"They don't give a fuck about us," Kim said. "They never have."

Leah couldn't do anything but agree. Life in the badlands wasn't fair. It had never been fair, and by the looks of it, it would never change. The badlands was a beacon, burning hot and bright, but it wasn't a beacon of hope. It was a constant reminder that life would always be destructive and hopeless, and it wouldn't stop until it got enough. And the worst part about it was that it would never, ever get enough. Leah and Kim had been wrong the entire time—they had never been the saviors of the badlands. They hadn't been anything but victims with huge hearts and a considerable amount of patience.

"'Free Delinquent V' is really trending on Twitter right now," Kim said. "Like, in reality. After three people died tonight at the beach."

"To be fair, though," Leah replied, "I don't think the public knows that Quil killed somebody. They just know he was arrested."

"That doesn't even matter."

"I know _that_ , Kim. I'm just saying. He might lose fans when they found out what really happened. I'm not defending him or what he did."

"I wasn't accusing you of anything."

Leah just rolled her eyes out of routine. "Okay, except you were."

"I'm not arguing with you right now," Kim said sternly.

"Who the hell said we were arguing?" Leah asked. "We're on the same page. We always are."

Kim just sighed. "Well, Lee, maybe we don't always have to be on the same page."

Leah wanted to let her win—she really should have let her win—but once she got going, she couldn't bring herself to stop. They shared just about everything, including the need to win. "You're trippin'," she said.

"What, so you think we have to always agree with each other?" Kim asked.

"I never said that," Leah told her. "I'd just rather get along with my roommate." She refrained from saying _girlfriend_ even though it was partially true (as well as partially unclear), and she tried to not make it obvious, but Kim noticed everything.

And Kim was a nice girl, after all, so she let Leah win. As much as they were equals (or as close as they could be to equals), Leah always won.

"I love you," Leah blurted out. She meant what she said, but she didn't mean to say it now. It wasn't like it would fix everything. Kim had a kind heart, but she didn't fuck around when it came to her feelings because she was so in touch with them.

So Kim left her feelings behind for a moment. She had too many of them, especially now.

"I'm gonna make some coffee," she told Leah. "Okay?"

Leah nodded. "Okay. I'm gonna call Jacob."

"Okay."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Next time on Static: we're gonna check in on Jacob. Naturally, there will be more feelings. Also, I'd like to apologize to those who had the impression that Paul wasn't actually dead before this chapter. It would have been sooooo Romeo and Juliet if he turned out to be alive. That would have been excruciatingly painful for everyone involved, tbh._

 _Oh, and a small update: I kind of lied. Next chapter starts with Leah x Kim so if you don't like them then I'd just skip to the middle of the chapter, lol. ALSO, I'm thinking of updating Wednesdays and Saturdays, so I can finish this one out February 1st. Sound good?_

 _Thanks as always and stay tuned,_

 _HS_


	85. LXXXV

_**A/N:**_ _I don't own Twilight. So here is chapter 85 of Static. We're getting so, so, so close to the end. You may or may not have caught this at the end of the last chapter, but I'm planning to update the rest of this story Wednesdays/Thursdays and Saturdays/Sundays just so I can finish this story out in a timely manner. Ideally, I'd drop all my classes and stay in my dorm writing the entire time so I could finish next week, but I can't. I'm desperately trying to get this story finished by February 1_ _st_ _._

 _That being said, I'm also getting together this HUGE final author's note that nobody besides myself will probably read, but if anybody has ANY questions regarding the story AT ALL and don't have an account/don't want to log in to PM me, then feel absolutely free to ask them in the reviews for these next few chapters. I have so much to say to my anonymous readers, but… they're anonymous. So if you have any burning questions and want them answered, don't be afraid to ask._

 _Here's chapter 85. By the way, I lied—this chapter actually starts with a significant amount of Leah x Kim fluff, so if you don't care, Jacob comes somewhere towards the end._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXXXV.**

 _you got your moment now, you got your legacy  
let's leave the world for the ones who change everything_

* * *

Bella's funeral was a few days later, just the morning after the wake. Leah woke up long before her alarm clock went off—she hadn't slept well. When she opened her eyes, she was facing the wall against her bed. She stirred, turning over. The early morning light was just slipping through the curtains.

Kim's head poked out from underneath the cover in her respective bed. Her voice was gentle and tired. She'd just woken up, too. "Are you up?" she asked.

"Yeah. Come over."

Kim took off the cover and padded over to Leah's bed, slipping into her comforter. Kim and Leah never wore anything to bed besides underwear and a t-shirt. Their bare legs pressed against each other as they gently wrapped their bodies together in a tender embrace. They intertwined into one figure, one being. Kim made invisible shapes in the space of Leah's bare back right where it began to curve into her backside. Leah ran her fingers through Kim's dark brown curls.

Just one more touch was all it took, and it was a wrap for them. Kim leaned in first, putting her lips against Leah's bottom one. This was how it always started for them, but it knocked Leah off her feet, anyway. Kim knew what she was doing, and she did it well.

Kim worked her mouth against Leah's effortlessly, with her hands grasping Leah like she was afraid she'd go away. Leah felt Kim's fingernails digging into her. It hurt just enough where it was still pleasurable. Kim didn't know how rough she could be at times—for someone so small, she exuded a lot of power.

Leah pulled away for a moment, a natural grin upon her face. Kim was still hard at work, moving her mouth down to Leah's collarbone. Her fingers graced Leah's hipbones, her nails still digging deep.

Leah shifted so she could lay back and rest her eyes, her hands still in Kim's curls. "You don't fight fair," she said, her voice just above a whisper.

"Hmm?" Kim hummed into her skin.

"Your fingernails are getting long."

Kim glanced up at Leah with a certain look in her eyes, and she laid a kiss on her collarbone again. She went slow, carefully utilizing her swift, talented tongue, all while maintaining eye contact.

"It's a style preference," she told Leah. Then she smiled, beaming like the sun. That smile would have knocked Leah off her feet had she been standing.

Leah began to smile back, but her expression was quickly replaced with something much different. She shivered, but not from the cold. Kim touched her, and now Leah was moaning softly.

Leah guided Kim's head up so they could meet to kiss. Leah kissed her gently, her head and stomach still fluttering. _This is it,_ she thought. _Bliss._

They kissed for a while, their hands exploring the other's body. They were lost in their pleasant, gasp-filled bliss until Leah's alarm clock made them come back down to Earth.

Kim pulled away slightly, a sad smile on her face as Leah turned off the wailing alarm. Leah sighed, and Kim pressed her forehead against hers, her eyes closed.

"I wish you could stay," Kim whispered.

"I almost wish I could get out of it," Leah admitted.

"I could just get you off instead."

"Sex," Leah said, slightly giggling, "isn't a weapon. And, anyway, I don't think it would be that inappropriate if you came with me to the funeral. You went to the wake last night. You and Bella were still friends."

"I just feel so…" Kim trailed off and moved back, adjusting her top.

Leah scooted back. "What?" she asked. "We all feel bad about what happened."

"Leah, it's my fault she's dead," Kim told her.

"Stop." Leah's tone was suddenly severe. "No, it's not. It's not."

"I gave her the gun," Kim admitted, and that was when the tears started rolling. Something about seeing Kim sad had made Leah a lot more empathetic. Kim had always carried more empathy than anything else. Everyone else's feelings were Kim's feelings, and now Kim's feelings were Leah's feelings.

Leah started to cry, too, and Kim was just shaking her head.

"It was the gun that I used to scare off Jared," Kim continued.

"You didn't put bullets in it."

"Not when I was with Jared. I put them back when it was done, though. I just… I planned to get rid of the gun, but I never did, so when Edward was threatening Bella, I gave it to her. I told her she didn't have to use it, but that doesn't mean anything. I gave her the gun and she used it and now she's gone."

"It's not your fault," Leah said tearfully. "Bella's psycho ex would have hurt somebody, anyway, and you know Bella. She has—she had issues."

"Leah, I _gave_ her the—"

"You didn't tell her to kill herself, Kim. You didn't."

Kim was quiet.

"It's not your fault," Leah assured her. "But I get why you don't wanna come, and that's okay."

"Yeah?"

Leah nodded. "Yeah. Just take care of yourself." She sighed. "I'm gonna get dressed. Jacob's picking me up soon. Are you gonna help me with my makeup or do I have to go in there looking a mess?"

Kim smiled a sad, tearful smile. She wiped her tears away, and then wiped Leah's tears away. "You never look a mess," she told her.

"You have too much faith in me, Bambi."

* * *

Jacob was waiting for her in the parking lot when Leah finally entered his car, newspaper in hand. She normally didn't care to read the newspaper, but the front page had caught her eye. It was about what had happened at the beach, and the cover featured a picture of Edward Cullen smiling in a high school senior portrait. The photo was years old, but Leah supposed the media didn't care. Edward had to have a good image no matter what he did or who he was.

"You read the newspaper?" Jacob asked her. He was clad in a black suit and tie.

Leah shut the car door. "I guess I do now."

She put on her seatbelt, and he began to drive to the funeral home. It wasn't that far at all, but he drove agonizingly slow, like he regretted the decision to come.

Leah stared at Jacob as he drove. He had dark circles under his eyes, and healing cuts decorating his face. He looked like he had a lot on his mind—and why wouldn't he? Leah felt bad for him. She was overly glad that he was alive, of course, but she knew he didn't want to be here. He wanted to get out of the badlands before he could get hurt again, but he was still here.

They both knew that, though.

They drove in mostly silence until Jacob said in a tone that was almost bored, "So Paul was a millionaire."

"False," Leah replied, flipping through the newspaper. "Multimillionaire. He won the lottery."

"And he didn't tell anyone?"

"He told me and Kim, but that's it."

"That hardly sounds like him."

"I know." She started to read the article, which mostly focused on Edward Cullen, the Dartmouth pre-med student who had been brutally murdered at the beach (and his killing of Paul was to be blamed on his mental health status, which he had been apparently trying so hard to overcome), as well as his brother, Jasper Cullen, the University of Washington undergrad who had been murdered mysteriously months before by local rapper and drug dealer Quil "Delinquent V" Ateara. It was painted as the worst of all tragedies.

"I'm gonna throw up reading this article," Leah said.

"What's it say?" Jacob asked.

"Just a whole bunch of shit to make Edward and Jasper look good," she replied. "I don't know what father and brother's statuses as a doctor and a lawyer have to do with any of this. Meanwhile, Bella was the pregnant daughter of the chief of police who had mental health issues. Paul was a Mexican criminal with an 'iffy' and 'dangerous' past. Oh, wow—it even mentions how he beat up his alcoholic father four years ago and went to juvie for it. Gotta love that."

"I hate that shit," he said.

"I know." She shook her head as she read the paper. "They even mention how 'hashtag-pray-for-Forks' has been going on for a while. People were trying to _donate_ to Cullens out of sympathy, as if they're not filthy rich. I mean, it's whatever, I get it, Jasper was a cute white boy with a promising future. But where's 'hashtag-pray-for-La-Push'? It was a bloodbath and we can't even get a fucking hashtag?"

Leah kept reading over the bullshit article, and then she heard a choked sob come from Jacob. She turned to him, and she saw that he was crying. She'd never seen him cry before. He was really breaking down, with the tears and red eyes and everything, but he was trying so hard to hold it back. It was too late, though. Far too late. He looked like a small child. It was so hard to watch.

"Pull over," she told him, her voice gentle. They were almost at the funeral home, but that didn't matter. Jacob did as told, and then he cut the engine.

They sat at the side of the road. It was an overcast morning in July, which was typical of the badlands, but everything felt wrong. Out of place.

Leah unbuckled her seatbelt and then leaned over in the car, hugging him tightly. She felt him sob from deep in his chest as he held her. It was a hearty, unapologetic sob. It was actually the first time that Jacob cried since everything had happened. No matter what they were, though, she would always support him. So she let him cry. He cried for a while. He was still crying a little when they switched spots and he let her drive the rest of the way.

Nothing was right anymore, but at least they were in the right place for now.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** So that was that. There's more Jacob/Leah in the next chapter._

 _Again, if you have any questions about any parts of the story, let me know! I'm putting a Q &A in the final author's note, which will be posted the same day as the final chapter._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	86. LXXXVI

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight or literally anything else of importance. Alright, so here is chapter 86 of Static. We're literally so, so, SO close to the end. I can taste it. This chapter, similar to the last few chapters, is pretty short. I would have - and should have - combined it with chapter 87 but it didn't flow well. This chapter is 97% Leah and Jacob, and it took a different turn than I planned. It's kind of an uneasy chapter, and a bit slow. The next one will be a lot more emotional._

 _Anyways, so next chapter is the penultimate one, and the one after that is the final chapter/first epilogue! (I have ideas for a second epilogue, but I am not going to pursue them because I told myself this story would be 88 chapters [plus a final author's note] and I am STICKING TO IT.)_

 _ALSO, make sure to put in any questions you have about the story at all in the reviews - I'll be putting a Q &A in the final author's note, which is dropping at roughly the same time as chapter 88. Sooo, get those questions in, if you have any._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXXXVI.**

 _all the photographs say you're still young_

* * *

Bella's funeral was quiet and adorned with roses. There weren't many guests, but there were certainly enough tears to make up for it. There were enough tears to go around three times over, most of them coming from Bella's mother, Renee Dwyer, who hadn't known her daughter had been pregnant.

Leah, who had managed to not cry at all, found it hard to face Renee today. Bella had kept her mother in the dark about essentially everything, so the connection had been lost. The last time that Bella had come to close to going through the motions to meeting her mother again had been in March, when she'd been thinking long and hard about going to Florida to live with her. She had only backed out because she had gotten pregnant. The connection should have might as well never existed. But Leah watched Renee try to reestablish the connection, and it hurt her soul so much—then she remembered that what she felt would never come close to how Renee felt.

Renee cried the entire time. She cried during the service. She especially cried during the burial. She was crying when she and her husband, Phil, left. They had a flight back to Jacksonville to catch. Leah knew she'd be crying on the flight back, too. She could cry for days. Bella hadn't gotten that trait from her father.

The image of Bella's mother crying remained in Leah's head when she and Jacob got into his car to head back home.

Jacob started the car up, and then he looked to Leah. "You hungry?" he asked.

She wasn't hungry at all, but she didn't want to go home, and neither did Jacob. Home didn't feel right.

They ended up at the burger joint in Forks. They'd been there so many times, and in so many different configurations. It was quiet there, but suddenly, Jacob and Leah didn't feel so isolated or haunted. Leah felt like she could finally breathe. The sun was just peeking out from behind the clouds, and she took it all in from her seat next to the window.

Leah had just ordered a soda when she finally asked Jacob, "How are you doing?"

"I'm good," he said. The thing about Jacob, though, was that he so often lied about his feelings for convenience. He always said he was good, but it was hardly ever the truth. Leah, like always, could read right through him.

"No, for real," she said.

He nodded. "I am good," he assured her. "For real. I think I needed that funeral."

"It was pretty cathartic," she agreed.

He glanced out the window for a moment. Something caught his attention. Leah's gaze followed, but she found nothing.

 _What are you thinking about?_ she wondered. _What are we doing? Where will we go?_

"Bella's mom," he began slowly, "cried for so long."

"Yeah, I mean, that was her daughter."

"Bella was so young," Jacob said, facing forward again. "I felt like I knew her forever, but she was only twenty. I never thought I'd still know her when we're thirty and forty and fifty, but I never thought she'd leave so young, too. I just thought she'd… move on. You know?"

"I know."

"I feel like it's still last summer," he continued, "when me and Bells got together for the first time. She was so alive. She was… she was almost _too_ alive, you know what I mean? I remember thinking, _God, this girl is fucking crazy._ But I loved her. I loved her _because_ she was so crazy."

Something about that didn't sit well with Leah. Maybe it was the fact that he and Bella hadn't dated in a while. Maybe it was the fact that he put a dead girl on a pedestal for something as simple as an indicator of her mental illness. Maybe it was purely the fact that no matter what, he wouldn't get it. He would never see Bella as something beyond a concept or a dream girl or just some girl who fucked him a couple of times and fucked him over a couple more times after that.

Or maybe Leah was just crazy. Maybe she just wouldn't understand Jacob or Bella or whatever they'd had, but she let Jacob believe what he believed. She let Jacob refuse to see Bella as a person because it was what he did best. This was how he mourned.

The server delivered Leah's soda, and Jacob still looked mournful. _He just better not say some crazy shit about me when I die_ , she thought.

"Pretty fucked up how Bella's mom didn't even know Bella was pregnant," Jacob said.

"They weren't that close," Leah replied, coming off a lot more blunt than she meant to. "It is what it is."

"I feel like people cried more just because she was pregnant when she died."

"You can't reduce her suicide to a fetus."

"That's what everyone else did."

"But, Jake, I just feel like she was so much more than a womb, or a potential mother, or Bella the baby killer. She was a person. She was a living person with all these characteristics besides being pregnant for six months. She loved the kids at her job. She loved to read. She loved sunshine and even though she was really bad at it most of the time, I feel like she loved to make people happy, too. Shit, she even loved Pinterest."

Jacob gave her a look.

"What?" she asked.

"You've never cared about Bella this much."

"She was—is—my stepsister. And I know that's not a good reason to suddenly care about her, but I think that, at this point, even if we weren't related by marriage, she would still mean something to me. We all mean something to each other. We're family. And, shit, Jake, she's a victim of mental illness. The fact that she killed herself because she thought her life had absolutely no value has nothing to do with her being pregnant. She just happened to _be_ pregnant in the moment. She still would have been depressed. She still would have been _not okay._ "

"You don't think she would have wanted to live for the baby?" he asked quietly. "Not even for Paul?"

"She still would have been not okay," Leah said. "She could still be alive and her baby would still be alive and she'd still be rich as shit, but I think her issues would have beat her out. Paul dying was what finally pushed her over."

"I think you're being kind of pessimistic," he accused her.

"I think I just saw her for who she was," she retorted. "Not for who I wanted her to be."

"You don't know everything," he told her.

"You're right," she agreed. Then she took a sip of her soda. "But I knew Bella. I've seen maybe some of her best times, and I've sure as hell seen her worst time. And I know that she was more than just some pregnant chick that the news is always talking about. She was a person with interests and maybe even some goals, but she had mental health issues and nobody helped her. She couldn't even help herself."

Jacob tilted his head and squinted his eyes a little. "Do you honestly think that you alone could have saved her?"

"Bella never needed saving. What she needed was someone to talk to, but nobody would listen. Maybe I was there for her, maybe I wasn't. I was a shitty person to her for a lot of the time, but… but we made up. I did what I could. In the end, she did what she wanted. People are always gonna do whatever they want."

Leah was suddenly filled with a sinking feeling. She pushed her soda glass away from her and impulsively got up from the booth. "Look, I'll pay you back for the soda later," she said. "I'm gonna go."

"But I was your ride here," he countered, genuinely confused. "How are you getting home?"

She had the strong urge to say, _Don't worry about it,_ but then she felt the bile rising in her throat. "My place isn't far," she told him. "Paul's funeral is the day after tomorrow, right? I'll see you then."

She didn't even give him the chance the say goodbye before she bolted out of the restaurant doors.

* * *

Leah was pacing back to the condo she shared with Kim, her black dress subtly billowing in the slight wind. The sun constantly winked from behind the clouds. It was honestly teasing Leah—she didn't feel so bright today. Why did it have to be even vaguely sunny?

She paced hard and fast down the sidewalk, not caring if she wrecked her shoes in the process. She was so focused that she hardly even noticed the car driving alongside of her.

"You've got legs, ma," a female voice called from the open passenger window. Leah turned, and her disposition suddenly went soft. It was Kim.

Leah got into the car, sat down, and sighed heavily.

"Did your ride abandon you?" Kim asked, pulling back into the road.

Leah buckled her seatbelt. "No, I abandoned him," she explained. "I got messy."

"The last few days have been messy."

Leah nodded, and she could breathe again. She was okay now. She know she wouldn't be okay for Paul's funeral, but she was okay for the time being, and that was all that mattered in the moment.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Remember to get any and all questions you have about the story, its plot, its characters, etc. into your reviews. And of course, stay tuned._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	87. LXXXVII

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight or anything else. In the fashion of the last couple chapters, this one is a bit shorter, pretty mellow, and very Jacob x Leah. I'm still accepting questions for the Q &A session in the final author's note, btw._

 _Enjoy._

 **LXXXVII.**

 _there's a picture frame of us in the corner just gathering dust  
funny how time doesn't move quite the same_

* * *

Paul's funeral was soon after Bella's. Paul's mother, Rosa, who took his death harder than anyone else, had fought long and hard for a traditional Catholic funeral in Port Angeles. Paul's father, Arnold Lahote, who had been living in Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island since Paul had beat him up, suddenly came out of the woodwork after Paul's death. He'd fought for the funeral to be a tribal one, held in the Quileute cemetery. Leah couldn't believe that Arnold had the audacity to act like he gave a shit about his son who he had abused for the first fifteen years of his life. Thankfully, Rosa had won, but there was a get-together in La Push afterward, at Paul and Bella's old home, where Arnold was present but not welcome.

Leah was out of her element the entire time. She hadn't cried during the funeral or even the burial. Surrounded by people she already knew, she felt incredibly alone. All she could ask herself was, _Why?_

The memories of her and Paul flooded her mind. She remembered when she had first met him, back when he had moved to La Push from Tacoma at the age of eight. She'd thought he was crazy, but fun. That description had stuck around through the years even when Paul himself _wouldn't_ stick around. Paul had always been young and wild. He'd been free. He'd shown Leah how to be free—from the times she would sit on his bicycle handlebars as he pedaled down the street to his more sporadic moments, when he'd take her to see his mom on a random day, Paul knew how to live. He knew how to live freely.

He hadn't been the most static. He had always been running around, going too fast. He would leave as soon as he'd come back, and it would happen over and over and _over_ again.

 _Paul has always been the comeback kid,_ Leah thought. _Why can't he just… come back?_

It was a horribly ironic, ugly, sunny day in La Push. If Leah didn't know any better, she would have thought that the badlands were fucking with her. Then again, nothing was normal—how could a world without Paul Lahote ever possibly be normal?

It was all hitting Leah. Everything. All at once. The last time she'd really cried since the world had crashed had been on the night of. After that, she'd kept it all in. She hadn't cried during Bella's funeral or even Paul's, but now, it was all coming around. She stood in Paul's old place, where she'd shared only too many memories with him, and it was all hitting her.

She had never truly hated Paul. She didn't have the capacity.

Since birth, Paul had always wanted to make an impact. It was incredibly funny, heartbreakingly sad, and downright ironic all at once. His dreams, hopes, and ambitions had been larger than what society had dealt him. He had held out for aces and kings while he kept getting twos and sevens in the world's horribly shuffled deck. Sometimes, Leah had wanted to bring him back down to Earth, but that was everyone else's job with him, so it never had to be hers.

When she thought about it, loving Paul had never been difficult. If anything, it was one of the easiest things she'd ever done. Basketball, high school, a little bit of college… all easy. Paul had fallen right into all of that. Loving him had been so _easy_ —even though it was harder now—because he had made himself so easy to love. It had been in his smile, for sure, but even more in his soul and intentions.

He had reminded himself of the beauty in the world, all the time. Some people were optimistic in the way they reminded themselves that the sun was always rising somewhere. Paul had been different. His dad had beat him when the moon was up, but by the next sunrise, Paul had always been convinced that life was still beautiful. He had made himself so easy to love because he had been open to it, all the time.

His words rang in Leah's head right now. He'd told her this back when he had been the most tolerable, back when she had believed in him more than anyone else.

 _I came into this world screaming and covered in somebody else's blood,_ he'd told her, _and let me tell ya—I ain't afraid to leave the same way._

Leah had never wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

Jacob nudged her gently. "Let's step outside for a minute," he said, finally noticing the fact that she was drowning in her own tears.

She went with him to the bottom of the house's front steps, pathetically wiping her own tears away, which led to more tears quickly following behind. Leah began to sob. Her cries were loud and ugly, but they were no longer pent up.

Jacob pulled her into a tight hug, but it didn't help. He was warm—too warm—and with the sun baking her entire body, she hated this. She hated every single moment of this. It was so sunny today that it made her sick. The sun had the nerve to shine in this hellhole of a town they lived in while the human equivalent to the sun—Paul—wasn't even around anymore. He would never come back around.

She pulled out of Jacob's hug. "God," she muttered.

"What is it?"

"What _is_ it?" she repeated. "Jake, do you know where we are? Or why we're here?"

"C'mon, Lee—"

"I knew Paul better than basically anybody else," she said, "and now he's dead. He's gone, Jake. He's always been coming and going, but he's never coming back."

"We know this," Jacob replied.

"Fuck, I almost wish Quil died instead," she admitted. "I mean, since this is all his fault, anyway."

"You're an awful fucking person for saying that," he told her. "That's fucked up."

"Well, it shouldn't have been _Paul_!"

"What, would you have preferred it was me who died?" he accused. "I was up there with the rest of 'em. It could have been me, you know."

"Oh my _God_ , Jake, what the fuck?!" she exclaimed. "Of course, I don't wish it was you. Honestly, I feel super shitty for making you come to the beach that night when you didn't even want to go. You should have stayed home that night."

"Look, Leah," he said. "You can't tell me you want me around and then _not_ want me around. You can't have it both ways and you know that. And Paul would have died if I wasn't there, anyway."

"Maybe," she said, her voice quieter. "I just wish he didn't die in a random act of violence. That's not how he wanted to go."

"Did he ever tell you how he really wanted to go?" Jacob asked. "Did he sit down and have a talk with you about it?"

"You're not gonna be a jerk-ass to me over this," she said. "Jake, I _knew_ Paul. Really knew him. And you… you just put Bella on a pedestal because of whatever sick fantasy of her that you dedicated yourself to."

"What the hell are you even _saying_?" he demanded. "You can't compare them like that, Lee. You can't."

"I know how you view Bella," she said. "Everyone has always seen it. She's a fantasy to you, Jake. Even now. She had real problems and you turned them into cute personality traits because you thought she was gonna change your life. You said it yourself—you loved her because she was crazy."

The worst part of all this was that she was right.

Jacob hadn't loved Bella for who she'd been. He'd loved bits and pieces of her. He had preferred the non-suicidal part of her. He had loved the girl who had thrived in the summer, who had made him laugh and made him feel alive. He had loved the girl who had challenged him, not the girl who had made him want to cry and angered him and had him praying that he'd exit her line of fire unscathed.

 _She's not perfect,_ he thought. _Bella was never as perfect as I wanted her to be._

"Why did you love Paul?" he asked Leah.

She dwelled on the question, her tired, red eyes filling up with tears again. She cracked a sad smile.

"That's it?" she asked. "That's your question?"

Jacob nodded. "That's it."

"I loved him because nobody else could. Nobody else knew how."

Leah felt herself burning underneath her black dress and the white sun. She was uncomfortable, but she realized it couldn't get much worse. She was starting to see pink, but it was only because she was looking on the bright side. She didn't have a choice.

If she had to turn all her pain, all her fear, and all her other negative feelings into beauty now, then that was what she would do.

Under the hot sun and blue sky, she stretched out her arm and took Jacob's hand. The feeling was familiar and platonic. She gave him a small smile, her salty tears already drying onto her cheeks.

"I'll see you around," she told him solemnly.

"I've still got you," he promised.

"I've still got you, too."

They were silent for a moment before he asked, "Is this goodbye?"

Leah never thought she would have to say goodbye to Jacob Black a day in her life.

"It might be," she told him. Then she let go of his hand and headed towards the bright blue sky without even a cloud in sight.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I'll catch you in the finale, dropping sometime on Wednesday, February 1st._

 _Thanks as always,_

 _HS_


	88. LXXXVIII

_**A/N:** I don't own Twilight. We've made it! Here is the final chapter of  Static. If you got a notification that two chapters have been posted, it's just because the next one isn't a chapter at all - it's just a really long A/N that's actually a commentary. You don't have to read it, but I have a lot to say about the story in it._

 _Thank you so, so, so, so, SO much. And of course, enjoy._

 **LXXXVIII.**

 _every single night, pray the sun will rise  
every single time, make a compromise_

* * *

One cool, early morning in the middle of August, Leah woke up before her alarm and gently stroked Kim's hair. She had moved into Kim's bed permanently—Leah's own bed sat in the corner of the other side of the room, essentially naked and collecting dust. She didn't mind, though. Kim's bed didn't just feel like home—it _was_ home.

Kim stirred, slightly agitated. It had now been two and a half weeks since the nightmare at the beach had occurred, but she was still shaken about the entire thing. The slightest things bothered her these days. Work had become unbearable—at least, when she had gone to work. Kim called out more often than not.

Kim's eyes fluttered open. Leah tried to act like she wasn't staring, but Kim knew her better than that.

"Are you going to work today?" Leah asked, her voice just above a whisper.

"I'm scheduled to start in about half an hour," Kim murmured. "I don't want to, though."

"Maybe you should go," Leah suggested. "It'd make you feel more normal."

"Nothing's normal," Kim sighed.

"Yeah."

"Do you work today?"

"No."

"Maybe I'll stay home, too," Kim said. "We should clean up the place, you know. Get a little more organized. I'll cook something nice and unhealthy for you. We can watch _Selena_ and make out on the couch."

Leah smiled. "You're so domestic."

Kim nudged her. "So what do you say?" she asked. "How about we take a day off? Just you and me?"

"That sounds good," Leah replied, "but you need to go to work."

"Maybe I should."

"No, you have to."

Kim just stared at Leah. Leah stared back. They sat there like that for a moment when Kim finally nodded her head and got up. Uninspired, she stripped from her t-shirt. Leah watched her tentatively as Kim dressed herself in the usual—leggings, a sports bra, and a tank top. Watching Kim get dressed was nearly as mesmerizing as watching her get undressed.

Kim entered the bathroom attached to the bedroom and left the door partially open behind her. The door was closed just enough that Leah had to lean over to see inside. Not caring how desperate she looked, she leaned over.

Kim stood right in front of the mirror, quickly applying makeup to her face. Watching her do this was like a movie to Leah—she was so good at it.

"I see you checking me out," Kim said, still staring into the mirror.

"Yeah?"

"Mm-hm."

"Is that a crime now, Bambi?" Leah asked, her eyes tracing Kim's soft curves. She was still the prettiest person she'd ever known.

"Not at all." Kim paused. "Can you make me a coffee, Lee?"

"I mean, I guess."

"Thanks."

Leah padded off to the kitchen and started to brew a pot of coffee.

 _Thank God she's not with that frou-frou shit,_ Leah thought. _Black coffee is so easy._

The dinosaur of a coffee maker took a while to brew the coffee, but when it was done, Leah called, "Do you want it now?"

"No, I'm still doing my eyeliner," Kim called back. Then she must have checked her watch, because she suddenly whispered, "Fuck."

Leah poured herself a cup of coffee and went into the refrigerator in search of milk. She couldn't help but stare at the refrigerator door, though, with the pictures of her trinity of dead favorite singers.

 _I have a goddamn problem_ , she thought.

She opened the fridge and failed to find any milk. Her head was still in the fridge when Kim ran out of their room.

"Bye, Lee!" she called, and then the front door slammed shut.

Leah leaned against the counter with her cup of plain black coffee. Maybe she'd take it like Kim did. "Bye, Kim," she murmured. She took a sip and nearly spat it out. "Ugh."

* * *

Leah had been wallowing in a coffee-less, tired limbo for an hour when she finally got dressed and drove to La Push. She meant to call Emily first, but she guessed that she would be home. (If she was at work, then it would be a waste of a trip but Leah wouldn't be mad.) She also guessed that she would still be living with Sam despite the fact that they were broken up.

Leah didn't want to be right, but she was.

Emily opened her front door, and while her eyes always had a certain sadness to them, she couldn't even hide it today.

"Hey, Em," Leah said, a genuine smile on her face.

"What's up?"

"I'm really hungry. If I drive and pay, will you come to the coffee shop with me?"

"You don't have to drive. That's a waste of gas."

"You always drive," Leah countered.

A real smile spread across on Emily's face. "Just go wait by my damn car, Leah."

Once they got settled in the coffee shop in Forks, Leah finally brought herself to asking why Emily still lived with Sam if they weren't together.

"I'm surprised you didn't ask the second I opened my front door."

"I thought that'd be rude."

Emily pursed her lips and squinted her eyes. "Since you're concerned with coming off as rude, right?"

Leah rolled her eyes. "I'm working on it," she said. Then they both laughed.

"I'm still living with Sam out of convenience," Emily told her.

"Em, that's so—"

"Me and Embry are trying to move in together, but he's been really busy."

"Oh, like, at work?"

"Yeah. And on top of that, people are harassing him about Quil on the Internet _and_ in real life."

"Why?" Leah asked. "Embry didn't kill anybody." Quil was still going through a lot things with the law—he hadn't been able to update his social media followers on his life since he'd announced his first show, which he hadn't attended, of course. The only person who knew what he was doing these days was his mother and possibly Embry.

"Like they give a fuck about Quil killing someone," Emily replied. "People really loved his mixtape."

"That says a lot about the general taste of people around here, then," Leah said bitterly. "Quil just goes on about the dumbest shit."

"People don't listen to music for the lyrics," Emily pointed out. "They listen for the beats, and Embry did a good job."

"I'm not discrediting him, Em, I just think that's fucking stupid."

"No, me too. 'Free Delinquent V' is still trending and I get a month shaved off my life every time I see it."

" _Thank you_ ," Leah said. "People make it sound he's going to prison because of weed, but this kid straight up killed somebody."

"White girls love Delinquent V."

"God. What's Embry gonna do now?"

Emily shrugged. "Keep telling people that Quil didn't end up with Bambi. It turns out that's everyone's favorite song. Embry doesn't think it'd make a good single, though."

"Wow. So you and Embry are still together?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"You _think_ so?" Leah asked.

"I'm trying not to be so fixed in things, you know?" Emily asked. "Nothing's been stable. I should just take things as they are now."

"That's funny," Leah said. "You and Embry are some of the most fixed people I know."

"Well, you know how that shit goes."

Leah smiled. "I'm happy for you, Em. I'm glad you're moving forward." _Everyone really is moving on without me._

"Thanks, Lee. It took me a while. I spent a week alone in the house for a week after everything happened."

Leah nodded. "It's been rough on everyone."

"How's Kim been? It's like she fell off the face of the earth."

"She's…" Leah trailed off. "She's been better. You know how she is. She wears her heart on her sleeve."

"She's so tough, though."

"God, yes," Leah agreed. "The toughest girl I know. But she's been real upset lately. I know it's definitely gonna be hard to get over, but… I just don't know if she will, and that scares me. She's been missing work a lot, too. She has money, anyway, but it's not healthy. I just want her to be okay. That's it. I'm ranting, huh?"

Emily nodded. "A little bit. You really care about her, huh?"

"Oh, man, what made you think that?" Leah asked sarcastically. "But yeah. I do."

"I was gonna ask if you were together. You never hold her hand in front of other people so I got curious."

Leah felt a sudden punch to the gut even though it was true.

"I don't know if we're together for sure or not," she admitted. "I've known her longer than I've known… anything. Or anyone."

"Knowing someone forever doesn't mean anything," Emily said glumly. "

"Maybe not for you," Leah replied. "And maybe not for Sam. But for me and Kim, I think that means something. She means a lot to me."

"Aww," Emily said semi-teasingly, punching Leah in the arm. "And you had me thinking Seth was the gay cousin all this time."

Leah rolled her eyes to the moon and back. "It's called bi—look it up."

* * *

After an amicable breakfast with Emily, Leah managed to kill the rest of her afternoon in La Push. While she hadn't had a normal summer since the one after her freshman year of high school, summertime in La Push didn't hurt when First Beach was so beautiful. She was trying to turn all her pain into beauty, trying to look on the bright side. It was working, even if it hurt.

When she returned to Forks at around four thirty, Leah went to Sue and Charlie's house, but both of them were away at work, so she relocated to the Thriftway, in search of milk.

She idly pushed her cart as she listened to music blaring from her earbuds, connected to her MP3 player. Leah didn't mind being alone—it was something she did often and very well—but she wished somebody would bump into her. She wished she could randomly see Paul or Bella or Jacob or maybe even Quil and catch up with them, but they were so far away. Jacob was more accessible than the rest, but he hated Forks. He hated La Push. He hated all of it. Leah couldn't be mad at him for it.

Leah just wished she had gotten to say a formal goodbye.

At the store, she paused her music and called her mother. Leah knew that Sue wouldn't always be around, but she was still the most stable, static person in her life. She had to be.

Sue picked up quickly, like always. "Hey, baby," she said. "How've you been?"

"I miss you," Leah said.

"Aww, I miss you, too. Since we're already on the phone, I thought I'd ask you to do something for me."

"Sure."

"Seth's moving down to L.A. at the end of this month and my job won't give me the time off no matter what I tell them. I'll give you some gas money if you can drive him down."

 _Shit, okay._ "Wow."

"You gonna help me out or what?"

"I'll do it," Leah promised. _I'm gonna get fired, but I'll do it._

"Thank you so much, sweetie."

"No problem, Ma. I've gotta get home, but I'll talk to you later. Love you."

"Love you."

Leah hung up, paid for the milk, and drove home.

 _God, I am so fucking fired._

* * *

Leah noticed Kim's car was back when she parked next to it, and she was excited to see her. She knew Kim was going through a lot, but maybe getting away again for a little while would do her some good. Kim loved the sunshine; it might bring her back. Leah just wanted her back.

When Leah entered the condo, she was elated, but the moment she saw Kim sitting tensely on the couch—thick, black mascara running from her big eyes and her winged eyeliner completely uneven—that feeling went away and was replaced with the worry that had plagued her before.

Leah carefully sat down on the other end of the couch. "How was your day?" she asked.

"I got fired."

"You didn't."

"I did."

Leah sighed. "It's not like I can ask why, I guess."

Tears welled up in Kim's eyes. She tried to catch them before they all came flooding out, but she failed. All she did was further ruin her already uneven eyeliner.

"I fucking hate this," Kim muttered. "I'm such a fuckup."

"Kim, it was just a receptionist job at a gym," Leah said. "There are so many other places to get work around here. You're gonna be okay."

"What if I can never get a job again, Lee?" Kim demanded. "I lost this one because I've been so out of it. I don't know if I'll ever stop being out of it."

"You can't assume you won't move on," Leah assured her. "When one bad thing happens, you always assume it's the end, but then you get your shit together and move on. You always, _always_ move on."

"You make it sound so easy."

"You have to dust yourself off and try again," Leah said. "That's all there is to it. And I know it's not easy—I've done it before. But I made it work, and, honestly, you have a way more positive mindset than I do, so it should be even easier for you."

"You don't know that."

"God, Kim, could you stop being so hard-headed?" Leah asked, exasperated. "I literally want nothing but the best for you. Can't you just let me try to help? Shit."

Kim just clenched her jaw and shook her head.

"What does that mean?" Leah asked her.

"Since when do you want the best for me?" Kim asked quietly.

"Since I decided I actually give a fuck," Leah said, rolling her eyes. "I've always wanted the best for you."

"So you figured it out? You figured out what you want, exactly?"

Leah couldn't answer her. She still didn't know how she felt about Kim, for sure, or what kind of role she wanted her to play in her life. All she knew now was that she wanted her _here_ , and to have a shell of the girl that Leah wanted around wasn't enough.

"I think I'm gonna figure some things out for myself," Kim told her, then she got up from the couch.

"Kim, wait," Leah said.

Kim turned, still tense. "Yes?"

"I'm in charge of driving Seth down to L.A. at the end of the month," Leah told her. "My mom can't get the time off work, and I really don't wanna go alone. Would you come with me?"

"I don't know," Kim said like she hadn't even thought about it.

"Please," Leah begged, desperately grabbing her hand. She was so fond of holding Kim's hand when they were at home, but Emily's words echoed in her head. They never held hands in public. Leah had never been ashamed of what she and Kim had. She had only decided that it didn't _matter_ if people knew what they had. But didn't it? Didn't it matter?

Why couldn't Leah see her and Kim together in public? Why couldn't she see them? Everyone else could.

" _Please,_ Kim," Leah continued. "I know you've been feeling awful, and I know you don't like leaving the house that much anymore. But if I leave you behind, I know you're not gonna get any better. You're gonna stay inside all the time and… I'll feel awful because I let that happen to you. Please, Kim. Come with me. Come out and feel the sun. _Please_."

Kim shut her eyes and squeezed Leah's hand. But she didn't let her win—not this time.

"I don't know," Kim repeated. Then she let go.

* * *

Things were quiet in the condo for the next few days. Kim stayed home the entire time. Sometimes she lied in bed for most of the day, only getting up to make coffee. Other times, she didn't leave her bed at all. Back when Kim had been okay, Leah would come home to music playing. Kim always had music playing. These days, Leah met a silent, eerie, saddening home.

One hot, slow Wednesday evening, Leah was scheduled to close at Floriano's, the restaurant where she worked. She left the condo on time, having said goodbye to Kim, but on the way to the restaurant, she realized that she hated it. She hated working at Floriano's. She especially hated her boss. She didn't even mess with Port Angeles like that. It wasn't her style.

So she went in, quit her job, and drove back home to Kim.

She drove home listening to one of the many burned CDs she had—none of them had writing or anything on the outside, but she knew which one was her favorite. It had some of her and Kim's favorite songs—the songs they would bump whenever they had long car rides—and listening to these songs made Leah's heart ache the entire way home.

 _Why wasn't it obvious before?_ Leah asked herself.

When she was entering the condo parking lot, she called Kim from her cell phone.

Kim answered promptly. "Are you okay?"

"Come down to the parking lot."

"Lee, are you _okay_?"

"Just come down."

Kim hung up. By the time she slipped on her flip-flops over her socks and opened the front door, she heard her favorite Destiny's Child song—with four members, not three, so she would know it was real—blaring from Leah's car.

She headed down the stairs, and the song only got louder. When she got down, she saw Leah—in one piece—just standing in front of her car, the door to the driver's seat still open. They could both hear all the neighbors within a quarter-mile radius yelling under the music, telling them to turn it down, but Leah didn't do anything about it.

"Why aren't you at work?" Kim asked, coming closer to her.

Leah shrugged. "I quit."

"Why?"

"There are always gonna be waitress jobs around here," she said. "I even have money saved up. I just hated it there, though. And, anyway, I told my boss that I needed to be with my girlfriend 'cause that's more important."

Kim, being the sap she was even with her tough disposition, looked like she was about to cry, but in a good way.

"I figured out what I want," Leah told her. "Finally."

Then with their favorite Destiny's Child song (with four members, not three) playing, with the sun still out, with the sky still bright, and with the neighbors watching and still yelling for them to turn down the music, they interlaced their fingers and met in a kiss as hot and slow as that Wednesday evening in Forks.

* * *

The night before Leah and Kim had to drive Seth down to L.A., everyone got together at First Beach. It was one of the last nights of August, and it was warm but not uncomfortable.

With the gentle waves crashing, the seven of them—Leah, Kim, Emily, Embry, Sam, Seth, and Jacob—set up a bonfire, and it was like they were all fifteen and sixteen again. It felt natural.

Leah sat between Kim, whose hand she finally held in front of everyone else, and Jacob, who finally wasn't regretful to hang out with everyone. He had been wary at first, but Seth wouldn't be the only one leaving tomorrow. Jacob and Lizzie would be moving down to Portland first thing in the morning. While Jacob was excited, he still had to give a proper goodbye to the badlands and the people he loved there.

Around the fire, the seven of them shared plenty of stories and more than enough laughs. They spoke of Quil. They spoke of Paul. They even spoke of Bella. To the seven of them, they were all the only people they'd ever really known. They were all the only people they'd ever really needed, and even though some would be moving on, the feeling would remain relatively the same.

So many things had changed within the last few years, but they were no longer afraid of change itself. They weren't as static as they had thought they were. They were brave. They were alive. Most importantly, they were _free_.

They were truly free.

* * *

 _all the things that humans do  
to leave behind a little proof_

 _*.*.*_

 _ **Static**_

 **fin.**


	89. Final Author's Notes

_**Final Author's Notes**_

 _ **Disclaimer**_ _: I still don't own Twilight. Oh, and if you haven't read chapter 88, go back. That's the real last chapter. This chapter really just comprises of some commentary and the "credits" to the story. You don't have to read this. I don't even wanna read this, lmao, but it's been a long journey so I have a lot of shit to say. If you find the length of this A/N daunting (and you should, tbh), then here's a quick_ _ **table of contents**_ _:_

 _-Opening notes  
-The background/humble beginnings of the story + inspirations + themes  
-Outtakes/alternate plot points  
-Q&A  
-Playlist  
-Closing notes_

 _I'd like to start out by giving a HUGE_ _ **thank you**_ _to everybody who took the time to read this story, listen to me talk about this story, review this story, follow this story, favorite this story, etc., etc., etc. I'd even like to thank the people who started but then gave up after a chapter, after 7 chapters, after 40 chapters, after 87 chapters (actually, no, wtf), whatever. You're not reading this now, but every view of every chapter counts._

 _(By the way, because I'm not required to write like a writer right now, I'll be cussing a lot, so don't read this to your kids, lmao.)_

 _This story is just a Twilight fanfiction, of course, but it holds a bit more value than that to me because writing it has been a journey through the hardest times of my life. The_ _ **humble, humble beginnings of**_ _ **Static**_ _came when I was a freshman in high school in like 2012/2013, back when I was busting out 3 one-shots a week and Twilight fanfiction was still kind of poppin'. I wrote this cheesy little thing called_ _Ride_ _, and that ended up being a very, very rough outline of the 88-chapter monster known as_ _Static._ _I knew I wanted to write a fic about the Quileutes because I've always been Team Jacob/Team Leah/Team Quileute and I literally don't give an ounce of a fuck about the Cullens. So I went with that and just rode with it._ _Static_ _existed as a handful of one-shots before it become what we know as_ _Static_ _, years later._

 _So anyway, it has taken me YEARS to get this story together. I started when I was a high school freshman, and I'm ending it as a college freshman._ _Static_ _has been my little letter to adolescence, and while I'm still not a real adult, I've grown a lot as a person while writing this._

 _The characters have been the most important part of the story to me. I knew I had to make them at least a little different from canon because everybody is human and we never got a lot of the wolf pack, anyway, but I will admit I ended up making them pretty far from canon. I also, in no sort of way, pose no accurate depictions of the Quileute tribe. I just got some characters and made them into everyday young people living in the Pacific Northwest, something I know best. (I live up here, and the weather really is as trash as I portrayed it.)_

 _I drew a lot of characterization inspiration from some people who have shaped my adolescence. Paul shares a couple of good and bad traits with my best friend (except she's not a slut). Quil ended up being kind of like my younger brother in regards to his musical skills (except my brother can beatbox his heart out, not rap). Jacob's self-esteem issues were shaped just a little bit by this guy I met in college. I wanted to make these characters come off as "real" teenagers, and I hope they did. This story runs on its characters. I based a lot of the female characters after myself, too, once I got into their heads and decided who I wanted them to be. I could list the traits of Leah and tell you which ones she shares with me, but that would be tedious and probably super self-centered. I've spent a lot of time on the characters, especially the women. Like, a lot. I could tell you Leah's favorite movie (in case you haven't read the story yet somehow, you're reading this long-ass author's note, it's Selena, obviously). I could tell you how Kim feels about various pop stars, or her favorite songs. I could tell you the track list to Quil's mixtape and the significance of every song title. All the characters have a different zodiac sign, too, and if you care enough, you can message me so I can tell you exactly why I gave them their respective signs. I care. So much. I couldn't have such a long story with flat characters, and, anyway, I got bored. Boredom and writer's block led to me fleshing these characters out like nobody's business. I had to get in their heads and_ _know_ _everything about them._

 _(Side note: I realize that I never explained in the story why Kim's nickname is Bambi, but it's because that's her favorite movie and she's dressed up as a deer for a significant number of Halloweens. I also heard this Azealia Banks [I know she's awful, don't me] song in 2013 that had this great lyric with the nickname Bambi in it, and I thought, "Wow, Kim would love this song." So there's that.)_

 _This story also runs on themes, which explains its length. I had a friend ask me, "Why the fuck is this story so long? Why didn't you make it into three parts or something?" The thing is, the story is already split into parts (you'll see later if you forgot). Some parts are 11 chapters long and others are 40 chapters long. It wouldn't work. So this long-ass shitstorm of a fanfic is what you get._

 _Anyway, this story is about love (lmao), sexuality, crime, the erasure of bisexuality, racial profiling, systemic oppression, misogyny, the role of feminism and how it varies, socioeconomic inequality, rape culture, double standards, and other issues that I care about, but it's mostly about friendship and ultimately, family. This story is especially about choices, and the family you choose. This story is largely about women, too. It's about almost everything I care about because in the end, I wrote it for me. It's a love/hate letter to adolescence, and it means so much to me._

 _And even though this story is for me, it's also for you. (All three of you.) It's for fanfiction readers. I would like to formally apologize to the Jacob fans, though. I initially meant for this story to be all about him, like the one-shot_ _Ride_ _is, but once I realized that this is really about Leah way too late, I got stuck. I shouldn't have started the first chapter giving the impression that the story was mainly about him. So I'm sorry if you feel scammed out of a Jacob fic (even though there are literally so many already in existence). If it makes you feel any better, though, I ended up making a LOT of plot changes in response to the complaints given in the reviews. For example, Jacob x Lizzie was never gonna happen until I considered a review that went something like, "I wish Jacob would get engaged and move away," and I was like, "Wow, actually, he needs that." If you guys hated a chapter because there wasn't enough Jacob/Leah it it, then the immediate next chapter would feature Jacob/Leah. And then there were the little things, like comments that Jacob and Leah would make to each other that would actually address some of the reviews. (I'm on top of my shit.) So if you thought the presence of Jacob was weak throughout the story, trust me—if y'all hadn't expressed so often how annoyed you were, it would have been A LOT WORSE._

 _Here are some_ _ **outtakes/alternate plot points**_ _that you may or may not find to be interesting:_

 _-I struggled with the title of this for a LOOOOONG time. The other options were really bad so I won't mention them here, but they were bad. Just know that. So if you think "Static" is stupid, you could have gotten something a lot more stupid._

 _-The story was gonna start with Leah. I didn't know what I was doing, though, so I started with Jacob. Again, sorry._

 _-Kim was not going to be as important as she was. I don't even think I was gonna make her bisexual._

 _-I reallyyyyy wanted to do a sexy, tasteful, full-fledged Leah x Kim sex scene, but I didn't because there was no room for it. I should have done it, though. Fuck. And now I really wanna write a Leah x Kim fanfic, but I told myself I was gonna be done with fanfiction once this story ended, so I'm screwed._

 _-Paul was originally gonna die in a dumb-ass drowning accident. Next._

 _-Edward wasn't going to be important after the Venice trip but then I decided there needed to be more drama, and Paul was not going to die in a dumb-ass drowning accident. Also I just like making Edward the bad guy because I do what I want._

 _-I was gonna do a lot more with Emily but it was starting to come off autobiographical of me in high school and that was kind of annoying._

 _-I was going to have Sam be more about native power but there wasn't really room for that and I don't care about Sam that much._

 _-I was gonna emphasize Embry being a genius more but idk._

 _-Kim was going to reunite with her first girl crush, Ashley, but then I had her and Leah happen._

 _-Quil's time as a rapper wasn't going to happen, but I thought I'd do something funny. Also, I wanted his Vine fame to amount to something._

 _-I don't think Jared was gonna be a minor villain?_

 _-I always meant to do a Leah x Paul sex scene but it would've been too wild._

 _-The story would have overall been super freaky? I don't know._

 _-Charlie and Sue originally weren't gonna get married but I was really trying to push the "Bella and Leah learn to grow the fuck up and not despise each other" thing to clear the air before Bella died._

 _-There was gonna be a FREAKY-ASS Jacob x Bella sex scene but that also would have been too wild and made chapter 23 even longer than it already is._

 _-Seth and Embry were gonna have a subplot where they try to cure Seth's asthma (? Lmao, I think I was watching a lot of MTV's Teen Wolf at the time I thought of this) but it really didn't fit._

 _-Embry was gonna have this wild crush on Sue, but like… No._

 _-Rosalie was initially going to get some sort of revenge on Leah for sleeping with Emmett, but that would have been super extra. She could have been one of the people who helped Edward threaten Bella, Paul, etc. in the end, but she and Emmett are actually grown and have lives. And, anyway, that would have just put Leah at an even bigger risk and she really didn't need that._

 _-Someone mentioned in a review once that they thought Leah was going to get pregnant with Emmett's baby, and for a HOT MINUTE I considered it but didn't follow through._

 _-A very early idea I had was that there would be a love triangle type of conflict with Quil, Claire, and Brady/Colin, the latter obviously being a more age-appropriate lover for Claire. Then I realized that I didn't care that much, and I wasn't going to somehow justify Quil getting involved with a girl as young as her._

 _-I wanted some sort of pregnancy scandal to occur with Claire, Quil, and Jasper right at the end, but there really wasn't any room for it and I was like, "Bitch, you wildin lmao" to myself._

 _-Up until I got to the end, Quil wasn't going to turn himself in for killing Jasper, but then I realized it would be wildly unfair for him to get away with murder while two of his friends died AND have a booming music career._

 _-This is minor, but there was going to be a LOT more Kim x Leah banter in their everyday dialogue since I think they could talk about everything and anything, but it would have gotten distracting or worse, gone completely unnoticed. If I had known that Leah and Kim were gonna be a thing when I first started writing the story, I would have certainly had them start to brew with the assuring words and thigh touches earlier than they did. Later, I would have had much more sexually-charged dialogue because I'm a freak hoe._

 _-Leah's daddy issues were mentioned once (see: chapter 72) but I wish I talked about them more, and in a serious way, because she does have them. (She also has a daddy kink, BUT that's irrelevant. And wildly inappropriate.)_

 _-Leah x Kim wasn't even gonna happen until I realized that they really were kind of gay, especially when they started living together, so I thought I'd act on it. Also, Kim deserves happiness after being kicked around a bunch during the story. ALSO ALSO, I like having bisexual representation._

 _-Bella's funeral was gonna be in Phoenix? Idk what I was on when I came up with that but Jacob and Leah were gonna drive down and for some reason, all of Bella's exes were gonna be there (because Edward would be alive, since he originally wasn't going to be a Big Bad, and Kim wouldn't be an ex at all because Bella x Kim originally wasn't gonna happen) along with some OCs for her Phoenix friends. It was gonna be super extra and a really obvious mention to my first big fic_ _Destructive Desire_ _and its baby sister_ _Blur_ _, BUT I decided that that's hella stupid. ANYWAY._

 _-Leah and Jacob were gonna end up together but I thought that would be boring and I just like Leah x Kim more, and Leah x Jacob just wasn't going anywhere._

 _Now here's some_ _ **Q &A:**_

 _ **Q**_ _: What inspired your characterization for Kim? (Anon)_

 _ **A**_ _: She's inspired by a couple people I know in her habits, like dance and having very opinionated opinions on pop artists, as well as the fact that she's very emotional. Because I have no clue who played her for that split second in the Breaking Dawn – Part 1 movie, her physical characterization for me is kind of similar to that of the singer-songwriter/dancer/talented person Tinashe. Her personality has a little bit of Tinashe in it, too: hard-working, "nice," bisexual… You know._

 _ **Q**_ _: Will Emily and Embry end up together? (Anon)_

 _ **A**_ _: Eventually. I think right after the events of_ _Static_ _, Embry is getting ready for Quil to go to prison so they're recording a whole bunch of music. Emily is still working, but she's going to drop everything and move to New York, like, really cliché, you know. Embry will come with her._

 _ **Q**_ _: What's life for Quil gonna be like now? (Anon)_

 _ **A**_ _: Probably 25 years in prison, so nothing, really. He gains an even bigger following after his arrest, which may or may not expand past Vine since we all know that Vine died this past January (rip). 98350 is a sleeper hit and receives great reviews for a first mixtape. The tracks "Loop That Shit" and "PNW (Pussy N Weed)" become singles, along with the fan-demanded "Bambi". The public finds out that Kim is Bambi. (Leah is still smug because she stole Quil's lifelong crush.) Embry helps Quil drop music from prison, kind of like Gucci Mane but not as cool. So not much is going on for Quil. He'd be better off if he hadn't killed Jasper, but he only started recording music because he killed Jasper and needed a distraction, so it's hard to tell._

 _ **Q**_ _: Can you please write another Bella/Paul story where they don't die and have a happier life? (lazygirl)_

 _ **A**_ _: I'd love to, but I'm 98% sure this is my final fanfic, and I don't think it'd be that popular with the readers here. Bella and Paul really exist in this story as foils for Leah, Jacob, and sometimes Kim. My plan for Bella x Paul has been the same from the start, from the pregnancy to the lottery winning to their respective deaths. And I like to think that if Bella and Paul hadn't died, they would have broken up at some point. They're still flaky, flighty people with commitment issues—I don't think the baby would have made those issues disappear. Thanks for the request, though, as well as the support for these characters._

 _ **Q**_ _: Will Leah and Kim tell (at least) Sue that they're dating? (Bobbihachet)_

 _ **A**_ _: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Well, okay, they won't tell her, but she'll know. Chapter 88, which is kind of like an epilogue, has an epilogue, too. Let's call it 88b. So in 88b, Leah tells Sue that she and Kim are going to drive Seth down to L.A., where he goes to school. Sue is perfectly fine with it. Leah and Kim are flirty or whatever, you know, the usual. Not to sound cheesy as hell, but their relationship strengthens even more over this trip, especially on the drive back up. (If you're familiar with my other works, think_ _Youth Knows No Pain_ _Parts 1 and 3 but with better writing.) They get back, and they've decided to be more open with their relationship, beyond just holding hands in public. They're not ready to tell EVERYONE (even though everyone kind of knows because of the hand-holding), but Leah tells Sue and Sue's like, "That's what I thought." So it's really cheesy, but Leah and Kim do end up coming out. They just don't make a big deal about it. It's very natural. (Fuck, now I wanna write this epilogue.)_

 _ **Q:**_ _Is Jacob going to visit the badlands again? (Guest)_

 _ **A:**_ _He'll visit his dad every once in a while, but no. He's moving on in life with Lizzie. Tbh, he needs a reeeaaaallyyyyyy fresh start._

 _ **Q:**_ _How are things going to go for [Jacob] and Lizzie? (Guest)_

 _ **A:**_ _Because I won't publish this anywhere unless y'all beg for it (and we know THAT won't happen), I'll call this 88c, yet another epilogue that I won't write unless some miracle occurs. So anyway, Jacob eventually gets married to Lizzie. They get married in Portland or Vancouver, you know, somewhere real basic, and he invites all his messy homies from the badlands. Everyone's a little more grown up or whatever—it's been a couple years since the end of the story. Let's say it's 2017. (The story ended in 2014.) We catch up with the kids. Emily x Embry show up even though they live far away. (Spoiler alert: it's New York.) Quil is still in jail. Sam goes to the wedding, I guess. Seth is doing well in college and is majoring in computer science because he's a smart cookie. Leah and Kim have moved to somewhere in Southern California that isn't Venice but is somewhat affordable. Kim tried being a nurse, which she always wanted to do, but she realizes she'd rather dance for a living. She ends up becoming a small-time backup dancer with a little modeling on the side. (She's gained quite a social media following, her Instagram being full of aesthetically pleasing photos of her and Leah as well as various makeup looks, so it's not hard for her to get "discovered." She's too short to do any runway modeling even though she'd make a decent Victoria's Secret Angel otherwise. Her fame is similar to that of Cindy Kimberly and limited to Instagram.) Leah realizes she doesn't hate law; she just had a poor experience with Emmett. She's a paralegal. (I don't know a lot about law, but my homegirl Dakota Johnson played a paralegal in How to Be Single and I thought that was cool.) Kim and Leah live together. ANYWAY, so the gang (sans Quil, Paul, and Bella, of course) get together again for Jacob's wedding in Portland or Vancouver or whatever. Things are a little ghetto but it's fine. There's a little drama. It's a fun time for everyone overall. Jacob and Lizzie later have a couple mixed kids. He probably gets a beer gut but he's a great dad._

 _ **Q:**_ _I'm interested in finding out whether you had the entire story planned out before it was written, or did you decide which way the plot would go as you wrote it? I would also like to know what made you decide to have Paul win the lottery in this story. (megan39)_

 _ **A:**_ _I had most of the story planned before I wrote it, yes. The plot line was very basic. I knew there was gonna be Leah, Jacob, Bella, and Paul. I also knew the major plot points like the road trip and the lottery and Bella and Paul dying in the end. I did make some adjustments/additions/subtractions as I went along, though, based partially on the flow of the story, partially on how the readers were reacting to the story, and partially on other things. I decided to have Paul win the lottery as kind of a way to prove that no matter what, life isn't fair for these characters. I don't like to do happy endings in my stories. That being said, when the majority of readers who took the time to review jumped down my throat in response to me having Paul win the lottery, I had to gain EVEN MORE patience and be like, "Just you wait." When has anything been fair for anyone in the story? Leah had a basketball scholarship to the school of her dreams, then she tore her ACL and wrecked it all. Then her father died. Then her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and her brother called her a jinx for it. I could go on forever with the rest of the characters. The tagline of this story should be "Life sucks," honestly. Paul's lottery winning (and inevitable death) was meant to be an example of that. It just took a little longer to play out._

 _That's the end of the Q &A. If there are some especially compelling questions asked, I'll update it._

 _Music is a huge part of my life, and if you're a real HalcyonSeasons stan (just kidding), you'd know that I got my start on here with the pen name MusicTwilightLove, aka the dumbest fucking pen name I've ever come up with in my whole-ass life._

 _Anyway, I like music. A lot. Every chapter of this long-ass fucking story has a lyric to go with it (save for the last chapter, which has two different lyrics). Personally, I think it's a powerful playlist. (My friend Tina would agree.) It has everything and everyone I love all in one place, and if this were to get lucky and somehow become a TV show or a miniseries or something, then this would be the guideline for the score/soundtrack._

 **Playlist**

Part 1

 **Onism** : The frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time.

 _Chapter 1 – "This Is What Makes Us Girls" by Lana Del Rey – This really shows the early relationship between Kim and Leah. From the start, they have put each other first. So, uh, yeah, I started with some Kim x Leah foreshadowing from the beginning. You know it._

 _Chapter 2 – "West Coast" by Lana Del Rey – This song has a very summer vibe to it. The simplicity yet depth of summer plays a major role in the story. Anything can happen in the summer for these characters._

 _Chapter 3 – "This Is What Makes Us Girls" by Lana Del Rey – The lyric itself ("and that's where the beginning of the end begun") is a summary of the chapter, plain and simple. Quil gets sent away, Emily and Sam "start over" (not really), and Leah thinks Paul is good to have in her life._

 _Chapter 4 – "Know It Ain't Right" by M.I.A. – This song describes the earlier Paul x Leah relationship. They both knew he was bad for her but they didn't care. Paul's arrest in this chapter is further evidence of this._

 _Chapter 5 – "Chasing Time" by Azealia Banks – This song mostly reflects upon Leah's constantly bitchy attitude and need to be independent. This is Leah's defining chapter, in my opinion._

 _Chapter 6 – "Teen Idle" by Marina and the Diamonds – Emily's suicidal behaviors go hand in hand with this song. This song is super triggering for me, as well as Emily's actions in this chapter, so it was hard to write and even read back on. Being a self-harmer myself, I always meant to elaborate more on Emily, but I never did._

 _Chapter 7 – "Still Sane" by Lorde – The "all work and no play" theme of the song is very Leah, of course. Leah knows what she's about._

 _Chapter 8 – "Girls Like Girls" by Hayley Kiyoko – A very obvious ode to Kim's sexuality, which is first directly considered in this chapter. The chapter also pays homage to the music video for this song, in which Kim beats up a boy to defend the girl she likes. But on a deeper note, the lyric ("I'm real and I don't feel like boys") really goes with Kim's mindset. She's always felt kind of fake because she's always been so concerned with Jared and how he feels all the time. This is her getting real and focusing on how she's feeling and what she wants. This was a favorite chapter of mine._

 _Chapter 9 – "You're The One" by Charli XCX – A very young Leah's feelings towards a very young Paul and the retrograde he put her in when he initially left._

 _Chapter 10 – "Colors" by Halsey – This song is cheesy so I regret it, but it describes Leah and Paul at the moment, and how Paul has such an effect on her._

Part 2

 **Anecdoche** : A conversation in which everyone is talking, but nobody is listening.

 _Chapter 11 – "Everything Is Embarrassing" by Sky Ferreira – This moody song describes a moody Leah, who now finds everything to be… embarrassing. At least, since Paul left again. This isn't the lyric I used but it's still relevant: "Telling me that basically, you're not looking out for me."_

 _Chapter 12 – "Shades of Cool" by Lana Del Rey – This chapter actually first saw the light of day in June 2014 as a one-shot of mine titled_ _His Strange Weather_ _. That was back before I was sure I wanted to write_ _Static_ _. The song is very, very Paul. This chapter was inspired by the many Washingtonians I know who romanticize California. I love them, but they're annoying. Or maybe I'm just bitter because I haven't tried In N Out yet. I don't know._

 _Chapter 13 – "Fuck 'Em Only We Know" by Banks – This chapter featured Bella for the very first time, and I was scared as hell to post it. This is THE Bella chapter. I wrote a large chunk of this one years ago, and I meant to post it as a one-shot but never did. This song goes with the early Bella x Edward vibe that was something like, "We're the best, we're so special, and anybody who judges us doesn't know anything." This was coming from people who HOTBOXED in a GROCERY STORE PARKING LOT in BROAD DAYLIGHT._

 _Chapter 14 – "Esta Noche" by Azealia Banks – Like chapter 12, this was also in existence before_ _Static_ _, and it was known as a one-shot called_ _Esta Noche._ _This was when Jacob x Bella was really defined. The lyric is something like, "He prefers the exclusive kind," which isn't that accurate. Jacob didn't know Bella was dating anybody. Fun chapter, though._

 _Chapter 15 – "Old Money" by Lana Del Rey – I used to hate this song, but the lyric I used ("The power of youth is on my mind / Sunsets, small towns, I'm out of time") really describes Bella in the moment. This is the first time we really see her cut and run, something that she eventually becomes used to, along with lying._

Part 3

 **Monachopsis:** The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.

 _Chapter 16 – "Is There Somewhere" by Halsey – I love this song and I knew I was going to use it in_ _Static_ _, from the get-go. This song goes well with Emily in this story. She never means to fall in love, but it happens, anyway. It's just unhealthy with Sam._

 _Chapter 17 – "Pity Party" by Melanie Martinez – Besides the fact that it's Leah's birthday in this chapter, she also finds herself going a little crazy. The party really does turn into a pity party by the end of the chapter. It's very sad._

 _Chapter 18 – "Midas Touch" by Ellie Goulding – These last couple of chapters of the story so far have been sad, but this one takes the cake. As the lyrics suggest, Bella's been going through changes, and her life has been up and down. This chapter is a favorite of mine, and it features a callback to the fanfic that made me realize I love writing fanfiction,_ _Destructive Desire._ _(I'm not promoting it, though, it's fucking trash.)_

 _Chapter 19 – "Tessellate" by Ellie Goulding – This song was always going to be a major part of this story. It demonstrates the social aspect of the story, as well as the group's general mentality. People talk shit, and shit gets around. I don't think this cast of characters is pettier than any other group of young adults, though. It's summer. They're bored. Gossip is a form of communication._

 _Chapter 20 – "Tessellate" by Ellie Goulding – Same song, different topic. This chapter isn't about Bella's relationship as an outsider to the group; it's about her and Jacob, and she's diving in. I love this song._

 _Chapter 21 – "Kicks" by FKA twigs – This chapter really shouldn't have happened, tbh, but I couldn't stand to make the story 87 chapters instead of 88. Lesson learned: phone sex doesn't really work in fanfiction. MOVING ON._

 _Chapter 22 – "Problem" by Natalia Kills – Possibly one of the pettiest chapters of the story, this is one of my favorites. Bella is beginning to cause a drift in the group due to her involvement with Jacob. It's also low-key racist, and because I care, I mentioned it. This chapter is petty but within reason. And, anyway, Bella in this chapter is a "goddamn problem."_

 _Chapter 23 – "High For This" by The Weeknd – Probably the most explicit chapter in regards to sex, this is also one of my favorites. I'm a bit embarrassed in hindsight because when I wrote this chapter, I hadn't ever smoked weed. That's obvious. Maybe if I revise this story sometime in the distant future, I'll put my newly acquired insight to work and make it right. Anyway, Bella and Jacob were high for, like, most of the time in this chapter. That's why I picked this song. This was such a fun chapter._

 _Chapter 24 – "Hurricane" by Halsey – Previously known as_ _Injustices of the Worst Kind_ _, this chapter is about Bella not belonging to anybody. The lyric used ("Oh, baby, beggin' you to save me / Though lately, I like 'em crazy") is sarcastic in this context. Bella doesn't need a man to save her from her mental health issues. That would be impossible. So, this chapter was a big "fuck you" to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope. I never liked John Green that much, anyway._

 _Chapter 25 – "Life Round Here" by Ellie Goulding – This song has been THE theme of the story since I first started writing it. This chapter goes back to Bella and Edward, and it features some commentary on rape culture. Is that just the life round here?_

 _Chapter 26 – "Know Yourself" by Drake – I don't really care for Drake or this song. I just needed a lyric for the chapter._

 _Chapter 27 – "Swimming Pools (Drank)" by Kendrick Lamar – I love this song. SO MUCH. The lyric here ("I ride, you ride, bang") really just describes the strong female friendships forming/strengthening at this point in the story._

 _Chapter 28 – "Swimming Pools (Drank)" by Kendrick Lamar – This chapter is about the girls drowning in the new environment that is Venice, as well as Kim and Bella becoming more interested in each other. "I think that I'm feeling the vibe / I see the love in her eyes."_

 _Chapter 29 – "Don't Hold The Wall" by Justin Timberlake – I thought this song would work a long time ago, but it really doesn't in the context of the main 4 girls getting arrested and bailed out by Edward. He thinks he's all that, but this song doesn't work, so I'm trash for this._

 _Chapter 30 – "This Is What Makes Us Girls" by Lana Del Rey – This story is really about the girls. Sometimes they stick together, and other times they don't. They don't in this chapter. (See: Leah and Bella's first fight in Venice.)_

 _Chapter 31 – "Ultraviolence" by Lana Del Rey – This chapter, in which Edward beats the shit out of Bella and she realizes that they are not okay and will never be okay, was written a long time ago. The message has always been the same: you can always be betrayed by the people you love. This chapter is super sad._

 _Chapter 32 – "Gods and Monsters" by Lana Del Rey – I really don't know why I used this song. I mean, it's not bad but it's not the best choice for this transitional chapter. Shoutout to my old fic_ _Gods and Monsters_ _, though. ( Bella and Jacob shippers: that's for you.)_

 _Chapter 33 – "Poetic Justice" by Kendrick Lamar – This is actually Leah's song, as well as the new Leah x Paul theme. "Every second, every minute / Man, I swear that she can get it." I think the original plan for this chapter was something a bit sexier, but I don't know._

 _Chapter 34 – "Bad Blood" by Taylor Swift – I try to avoid snakes like Taylor Swift at all costs, but this song perfectly describes the chapter. Leah and Bella used to kind of get along, and now they're gonna fight. Obviously. First Beach Fight Club, bitch._

 _Chapter 35 – "Two Weeks" by FKA twigs – Very Jacob x Bella. She could easily trap him, and being with her for him is like being high. This is a favorite chapter of mine._

 _Chapter 36 – "Poetic Justice" by Kendrick Lamar – This is THE Leah x Paul chapter. It's the fluffiest thing I've written but I have no regrets since it's probably one of the best chapters in this long-ass, dark-ass story._

 _Chapter 37 – "Pendulum" by FKA twigs – Emily x Embry. Embrily. Writing them together is annoying because they have such similar names but that's how it is._

 _Chapter 38 – "Dark Times" by The Weeknd – Very Quil and Kim, but not Quil x Kim. They both return to their pasts here. Sometimes people remain… static._

 _Chapter 39 – "Slow Life" by Grizzly Bear – This song is from the New Moon soundtrack. I didn't really have a good idea for a song for this short chapter, so I went with what I knew. It worked._

 _Chapter 40 – "Desperado" by Rihanna – "There ain't nothing here for me anymore, but I don't wanna be alone." Very Emily._

Part 4

 **Altschmerz** : Weariness with the same old issues that you've always had – the same boring flaws and anxieties that you've been gnawing on for years.

 _Chapter 41 – "Unravel" by POP ETC – I just really like this song. Here's a special nod to "Kiss It Better" by Rihanna. It almost made the cut._

 _Chapter 42 – "Gasoline" by Halsey – This is a favorite chapter of mine. I find it to be the very core of the story. That's all I can really say about it._

 _Chapter 43 – "In Time" by FKA twigs – The chapter is about Paul, but the lyrics are really in Leah's perspective. It's a short chapter that mentions The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Twilight, The Fault in Our Stars, Glee, and The Breakfast Club all in the same sentence because I'm a trash can of a writer._

 _Chapter 44 – "Same Ol' Mistakes" by Rihanna – This was a strange chapter, but I enjoyed writing it. The mood of the lyrics ("I can just hear them now / 'How could you let us down?' / But they don't know what I found / Or see it from this way 'round") is very Leah. Her mom is fighting breast cancer yet she finds herself more bummed about Paul leaving her. Again. Seth thinks she's letting the family down. You know the rest._

 _Chapter 45 – "Same Ol' Mistakes" by Rihanna – Also known as the end of Jacob x Bella as we know it. Sorry, shippers. Bella's stubbornness comes out a lot here. Shoutout to the movie How to Be Single, which in hindsight makes this very, very, very ironic. "Stop thinking you're the only option."_

 _Chapter 46 – "Change" by Banks – This song has nothing to do with the chapter, but it's a good song. I love Banks. I think "Hide" by FKA twigs was the original song I was going to use, but I didn't._

 _Chapter 47 – "Let You Love Me" by Tinashe – The song doesn't go with the chapter, which is one of my favorites despite it getting negative reception from people here. It's still a good song, though._

 _Chapter 48 – "Born To Die" by Lana Del Rey – Naturally, people almost died in this chapter. (See: Paul x Bella's first date, the car crash.)_

 _Chapter 49 – "Born To Die" by Lana Del Rey – I've used this song A LOT in my fanfics throughout the years. I'd be ignoring my roots if I didn't use it here. Shoutout to half of my fics!_

Part 5

 **Énouement** : The bittersweetness of having arrived in the future and seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self.

 _Chapter 50 – "Is There Somewhere" by Halsey – The Sam x Emily theme. Peep Kim meeting her lesbian neighbors for the first time. I thought I was being soooo innovative when I threw Tanya x Carmen in; they're there for a good reason, I swear._

 _Chapter 51 – "Yeah, I Said It" by Rihanna – Leah doesn't care for titles as she gets with her boss, Emmett. Sexy, short song for a sexy, short-lived couple. I had no idea how to write Leah x Emmett without making it too Leah x Paul (and Emmett is in this story to REMIND Leah of Paul) so it came off as a little Fifty Shades, but it's whatever._

 _Chapter 52 – "Hold Up" by Beyoncé – Leah starts realizing things, like how Beyoncé realizes things in Lemonade, an album that truly, honestly saved my life. I think I played with the idea of Rosalie finding out and getting some form of revenge, but that's super extra. Like, even for me, and I took the time to write an 88-chapter Twilight fanfiction in 2017._

 _Chapter 53 – "Love Drought" by Beyoncé – I enjoyed writing this chapter, and I love this song. Paul x Bella begins to emerge in a sober, non-sexual setting._

 _Chapter 54 – "My Best Days" by Lana Del Rey – This chapter is comprised partly of my one-shot_ _My Best Days_ _, except it has been altered to fit the context and form of_ _Static._ _Moody song for a moody chapter._

 _Chapter 55 – "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse – This chapter was inspired just a little bit by Amy Winehouse, who I absolutely adore. I think I was watching the Amy movie a lot when I wrote this chapter._

 _Chapter 56 – "XO" by Beyoncé – Kim x Bella comes to be. Kim needed this, and I enjoyed writing this chapter. A gentle song for a gentle chapter. "Baby, love me lights out." And Bella actually loved Kim lights out, because their lamp burned out. I'm so funny._

 _Chapter 57 – "c u next tuesday" by Kesha – I like this song, and not for the obvious reasons. "Let's not pretend it's love."_

 _Chapter 58 – "Needed Me" by Rihanna – Despite this chapter getting shit on by various anonymous readers, it's still one of my favorites. "Didn't they tell you I was a savage?"_

 _Chapter 59 – "Still Sane" by Lorde – A theme of Leah's and a callback to chapters 5 and 7, this gentle song goes with this mostly gentle chapter. After all the complaints about chapter 58, I revamped this one to kind of compensate for the general dissatisfaction. I wrote this long-ass Twilight fanfic for me and if I wanted it to be a choose-your-own-adventure story, it would have been one, but I have changed a LOT of details and chapters in order to please the audience, who may or may not have ended up still disliking this story. I don't care that much and I'm always going to write what I want, but just know that this story would have been A LOT worse if you guys hadn't dragged me as often as you did. So thanks for that, I guess._

 _Chapter 60 – "Don't Hurt Yourself" by Beyoncé – Kim, who's now out as bisexual, is about to bite back after Jared threatens her._

 _Chapter 61 – "Soda" by Azealia Banks – This song is upbeat but very sad, kind of like Kim._

 _Chapter 62 – "Fuck With Myself" by Banks – This song SLAPS and is very Kim._

 _Chapter 63 – "High By the Beach" by Lana Del Rey – "Peace by vengeance brings the end." Also, very Kim._

 _Chapter 64 – "Stick" by Banks – This is like chapter 59's sexier, more mature older sister. This song is very sexy and soft, like Jacob and Leah in this chapter. Not to sound conceited, but this chapter was so good. I'm proud of it._

 _Chapter 65 – "Drowning" by Banks – This song is good. The chapter depicts a turning point in the story. Paul x Leah, while already dead, has no possibility of happening EVER again. Leah was drowning for him, but she eventually learned to swim. Now Paul is drowning in Bella, and not even just in the sexual sense. (LMAOOOO.)_

 _Chapter 66 – "Love is a Losing Game" by Amy Winehouse (but the acoustic, live version as shown in the movie AMY) – Bella x Paul on a bad day. Through and through. Also very Virgo x Aries, which I find to be wrong in so many ways. Sad chapter overall and one of my faves despite all the shit I got._

 _Chapter 67 – "Ride" by Lana Del Rey – The existence of this song is why I even got the idea for_ _Static_ _. I owe Lana my life._

 _Chapter 68 – "Bitch Better Have My Money" by Rihanna – This chapter isn't even about money, so I don't know._

 _Chapter 69 – "High By the Beach" by Lana Del Rey – "You could be a bad motherfucker, but that don't make you a man." Quil. Very Quil._

 _Chapter 70 – "Gemini Feed" by Banks – This is one of my favorite songs, and Bella finally accepts that she. Does. Not. Fuck. With. Edward. Cullen. Any. More. And to think he would get her to the altar…_

Part 6

 **Sonder** : The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.

 _Chapter 71 – "Young God" by Halsey – Bella x Paul on a good day. Winning the lottery makes for a very good day. Everything about this song is Bella x Paul for me. I haven't listened to it in a while, but I'm listening to it as I type this and it's so… intense. This is the Paul I always meant to write but didn't._

 _Chapter 72 – "Poetic Justice" by Kendrick Lamar – Probably the best Leah x Kim chapter in the story besides when they first kiss, of course. Paul realizes that Leah is gonna be happy being herself, and he's fine with it. I know I've used this song probably three times before this chapter, but this lyric is important to me: "Love is not just a verb; it's you looking in the mirror."_

 _Chapter 73 – "National Anthem" by Lana Del Rey – I have no idea why I picked this song, but it kinda worked. More Leah x Kim foreshadowing is featured in this chapter. *tongue emoji*_

 _Chapter 74 – "All Night" by Beyoncé – Bella x Paul on a really good day._

 _Chapter 75 – "No Role Modelz" by J. Cole – I was really feeling this song when I wrote the chapter, even if they don't really go together. The song that plays on the radio when Kim is dancing on the beach is actually "2 On" by Tinashe, though ( anybody considering adapting this into a television show). This chapter was originally gonna have a lyric from "Freak" by Lana Del Rey, but there wasn't anything freaky going on and I wasn't about to throw that in._

 _Chapter 76 – "This Is Not About Us" by Banks – The end of Emily x Sam as we know them. This is such a good, cool song that I used the entire first verse for the chapter. This chapter took a much different turn from what I originally had because I realized that throughout this entire story, Emily and Sam existed as extensions of each other, and that's not how real life goes. Something had to come between them, and I'm so glad it was her writing, in the end._

 _Chapter 77 – "Soul Glitch" by Tinashe – This is probably one of my favorite songs to ever exist. It's only somewhat Leah x Jacob, but I really just wanted an excuse to include it in the story. It would have made the most sense to use a Beyoncé song, though, since one of the settings in this chapter is Houston, Texas. "Dreaming of You" by Selena is also a big part of this chapter. Obviously. (See: Wafflegate.) I think I was originally gonna use "Money Trees" by Kendrick Lamar as the song of this chapter, but I like to switch shit up. A bitch is creative._

 _Chapter 78 – "Florida Kilos" by Lana Del Rey – This chapter is basically this song minus the drugs. Cute. Upbeat. Makes me think of hoop earrings. An important chapter for Leah x Kim. I don't know when I decided to make Leah x Kim a thing, but I'm so glad I did._

 _Chapter 79 – "Thinkin Bout You" by Frank Ocean – I'm in love with this song. I think it's timeless. This chapter is at a strange part of the story. The characters are thinking about forever. What are they going to do with their lives when they come back to the badlands? Will they stay? What will happen if they change? (Spoiler alert: they've already changed.)_

 _Chapter 80 – "Sorry" by_ _Beyoncé – And not for the obvious reasons. The lyric I was inspired by ("Let's have a toast to the good life") isn't about Bella's new life with Paul in Seattle, with all their riches. The "good" life is her old life, the life she knows best, in the badlands, as well as the fact that much to her surprise, she will miss the badlands when she leaves. Very melancholic._

 _Chapter 81 – "Art Deco" by Lana Del Rey – Irony. Just irony. Every time there is a "little party" in this story, somebody gets hurt, emotionally, physically, or otherwise. Special nod to "We're Still Friends" by Amy Winehouse._

 _Chapter 82 – "Summer Friends" by Chance the Rapper – The season of summer has such an important role in this story. It's when people are around each other the most, and the wildest things happen. The dramatic events that happen at the beach this chapter is where all this wildness culminates. And of course, not everyone survives. "Summer friends don't stick around."_

 _Chapter 83 – "Love is a Losing Game" by Amy Winehouse – If you noticed, I used this song for chapter 66, too, which was also very Bella x Paul. In chapter 66, Bella felt like she was losing part of herself as she was adjusting to living with Paul and, subsequently, his economic class. (I got a whole bunch of shit for that chapter.) So anyway, I used this song again for this chapter because Bella is losing herself yet again due to Paul, but in a much more permanent, fatal way. This is the same fanfiction version of Bella who was first seen waiting for her boyfriend to text her back. Bella had a run of exactly 70 chapters (that's not to say she was featured in every one of those 70 chapters, though, because she wasn't and I'll make a graph if you wanna fight me on it), and for the most part, she was as strong as her love was._

 _Chapter 84 – "It's You" by Zayn – I don't like Zayn, but I really like the lyric I used. "Am I wrong for wanting us to make it?" Initially, like when I FIRST started this story, it was going to be Jacob x Leah, but this lyric ended up working better for Leah x Kim. And y'all know how I feel about them, so…_

 _Chapter 85 – "Swan Song" by Lana Del Rey – This chapter was originally gonna have Bella's funeral, but due to political reasons, I had to push it forward a chapter. But, anyway, this is super ironic because Bella's last name is/was Swan, and she had her final moment right before she died (obviously). But the lyric ("You got your moment now, you got your legacy…") is about Edward, too, and how the media portrays him as such a good guy with a good heart from a good family who just slipped up. (This is clearly social commentary.) Other songs that inspired this chapter (meaning the Leah x Kim sexiness) include: "Touch (Acoustic)" by Little Mix because of the lyrics, and "Do It Well" by dvsn because of the music._

 _Chapter 86 – "Body Electric" by Lana Del Rey – I think that if you step back a little and look at the deaths of Bella and Paul, it's a bit haunting how young they were when they died. They were just twenty years old, and even though they didn't have a lot going for them (besides their baby and the fact that they were rich), they still had potential. Lots of it. They could have made something of themselves. They just might have. But they died so young. The lyric I used reflects that. "All the photographs say you're still young."_

 _Chapter 87 – "Sunburn" by Tinashe – My favorite book (and a huge reason why I even write to begin with) is Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. There's a line in it that goes something like, "It's ugly, but it's over." That's how I feel about this chapter. The song that matches it is about moving forward to the positive, even if it might hurt. Leah and Jacob finally evaluate their feelings in regards to Paul and Bella, and it allows them to move on. What happened at the beach was ugly, but it's over. Everyone just has to carry on. This chapter contains a small amount of material from this old one-shot I wrote called_ _Additionally._ _It went through a lot of changes to make it to_ _Static_ _, though._

 _Chapter 88 – "Coming Down" by Halsey – "Immortal" by Marina and the Diamonds – This chapter is special, of course, because it's the final one, so it gets two songs. The opening lyric ("Every single night, pray the sun will rise / Every single time, make a compromise") is really about Leah x Kim, though, and how they can be as different as day and night, as well as how they behave differently depending on day and night. This contrast is also evident in how affectionate Leah behaves toward Kim in public vs. in private, which Leah makes herself address in the bulk of this chapter. This chapter came off way different than how I thought it would, but I am content with it. The Destiny's Child song that Leah was blasting was "Say My Name," btw. (And before someone 's me, the video had three band members but the vocals had four.) The closing lyric ("All the things that humans do / To leave behind a little proof") pays homage to the ending of my old fic_ _Remedium_ _but without anyone else dying. While the characters aren't immortal, obviously, the connections that they have to each other are. It will live on. (Or some cheesy shit like that.)_

 _So that's the playlist. I don't think I have anything else to say except once again,_ _ **thank you, thank you, thank you**_ _for all the support throughout this journey. Writing is my favorite passion, and fanfiction has allowed me to become more creative and a better writer through the years. Writing has helped me cope with so much. Thank you for letting me share my passion with you._

 _ **Thanks as always, thanks forever,**_

 _ **HalcyonSeasons xx**_


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